Legal Case Summary

Good afternoon. This is a matter of Christopher McAugreg, Ninth Circuit No. 14-804-80112. And this is a hearing in response to Mr. McAugreg's request for hearing to address the order to show cause why Mr. McAugreg should not be suspended, sanctioned or disbarred for violating the court's rules and orders. Mr. McAugreg, when do you come up and approach the podium here? And let me mention to you that this proceeding is being recorded. So it would be helpful if you spoke into the microphone so we can get a clear recording. And I also wanted to make sure you are aware that you are entitled to be represented by council at this hearing. Do you understand that? I understand, Dr. McAugreg. And you are choosing to represent yourself, correct? That's correct. And the other matter is that I would, I'm going to ask you some questions and I want to make sure that those answers to those questions are under oath. So I'm going to begin by having my courtroom deputy administer the oath to you. Thank you. So you have received the order to show cause. I did. And you've responded to it

. I have read your response. And I also don't have the benefit of the opening brief you filed in the matter of Paraza versus Holder, which was one of the matters that was enumerated in the order to show cause. So this is your hearing, Mr. McAugreg, for you to show cause why the court shouldn't take disciplinary action against you. And I'm interested to know how you propose to proceed today. Your honor, I'll just, if I may just explain. First of all, a brief background into my practice of immigration law in San Diego and also afterwards explain the handling of the 11 cases that are alleged by the court. Okay. Let's begin with your background. Let's start with your education. Okay. Well, I graduated from undergrad at UC Santa Barbara in 1996. I worked as a paralegal. Then I went to law school in Sacramento, McDorge School of Law, graduated, I believe in 2000. 2002 and I took the bar exam in December, July 2002 and was admitted to California in December of 2002. Soon thereafter, I moved back to San Diego, where it was in my hometown and trained to practice some areas of immigration law for a few months. Afterwards, a business partner of mine agreed to open up our own office in 2003. Excuse me, when you say business partner, you mean another lawyer who you're having a practice with? Yes

. Okay. So, what's that, ladies name? Her name is Rebecca Pedrosa. She's no longer my business partner. So, since then, I've been practicing immigration law. Primarily, our area of expertise is in family visas, obtaining legal residency, citizenship, and also a good chunk of our cases have to involve representing individuals in immigration court, mostly in San Diego, but I do represent some clients in and around California, some of them are out of state. So, I've been doing that since 2003. As a court notes, I applied for admission to the Ninth Circuit on August 19, 2005, after I was contacted by a potential client, he needed help in filing a appeal with the Ninth Circuit. That's my brief background. And how long have you been, how long were you with Rebecca Pedrosa? From 2003 to some time in 2006, unfortunately her mom got cancer. Her parents live up here in San Jose, so she moved up to be with her. You've been a solo practitioner since 2006? Yes, Your Honor. Briefly, my office at the time, it was just me and my secretary, who were pretty much operated as a to-run office, and she kept track of all the files and all that. Again, well unfortunately for her, she also became ill, she has a lupus, and early this year she had to leave my office, so I've been shuffling around different secretaries until I finally have found an assistant just recently. Okay. Start with Pedrosa, since that seems to be the one that has led you here. Okay. Bertha Peraza was a long time client of mine. I don't remember the date she actually hired me, but it was around 2009, 2010, as she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement

. I agreed to help her out with first getting her out of custody and then representing her in Immigration Court. The Immigration proceedings lasted roughly around two years, maybe, two and a half years. There was some discussion about possibly applying for temporary protected status, but unfortunately for Miss Peraza she didn't qualify. So we went forward with her Immigration hearing, the judge denied her applications for relief, and we filed a appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals. That was the decision, the judge's decision was affirmed, and then we filed a petition for review, which brings up to her filing of a petition review with this court. What was the B.I.'s decision? Essentially just affirmed that Immigration charges decisions. Immigration charges decision. That she did not qualify for the relief. There was some, well Miss Peraza did testify, but there was some, I don't remember the details of the Immigration charges decision at this time, but I can't answer that in detail. I just know that the judge just denied her application for withholding it from a temporary protected, not convention against torture. So then the BIA affirmed, and then on October 15th, 2012 you filed the petition for review in our court. Yes. I filed that petition to, let me just take a step back and just explain my dealings with these clients. And it also might help with explaining how I helped Miss Peraza. After the BIA affirms that the Immigration Judges decision, the clients, well they are very concerned about their chances of staying in the United States. So I agree to help them out with preserving their appellate rights

. So we filed the petitions for review, well I do, to file the petition for review to preserve their appellate rights. Because with Miss Peraza's case, my research would her case, I found a case that, where some individuals were not granted the opportunity to apply for prosecutorial discretion with the government. So I decided to take the petition for review that way and argue it with the court to see if Miss Peraza can have her chance to apply for a prosecutorial discretion, which we never had a chance to do when we had our immigration proceedings. When you said you never had a chance to do, did anybody prevent you from asking the government for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion? No, Your Honor. And if I may be clear with that, prosecutorial discretion as far as I know has always been an available mechanism to, you know, essentially negotiate with the government. And depending on the individual's background, if they have crimes, their families ties in the United States, that's always been around. However, in 2012, I believe President Obama issued a mandate to the government, essentially to the lawyers representing the immigration and customs enforcement to, to see if there's a way to lessen the backlog of cases in the immigration court. Miss Peraza's case was, if I remember the timeline correctly, President Obama had not yet issued that mandate. So I did not request prosecutorial discretion with the immigration court at the time. However, through some discussions with some colleagues, they brought up this case, and I don't remember the case offhand right now, Your Honor. But I know it's case you're talking about, but just so that you have the chronology correct, the Morton memorandum, which is what you're talking about, was issued in June of 2011, and that was a year and four months before you filed the petition for review in the Ninth Circuit. Okay. So this was something that you should have been aware of when you filed your petition for review. Yes, Your Honor, and I didn't ask that that's correct, and I didn't ask for prosecutorial discretion with the government. And when you say that the court issued a decision, what do you recall, what that decision was, what the context was, which court are you referring to? The Ninth Circuit, you say you found a case that said that something about the court has made a decision. They asked, I mean, the Ninth Circuit did not essentially make a decision, but they sent a request for guidance from the Department of Homeland Security as to how the Ninth Circuit shall proceed with. I don't think that's exactly precisely correct, isn't it that they allowed the petitioners to stay in the case or gave the petition an opportunity to request prosecutorial discretion in light of this new, which at that time was a new Morton memorandum? Yes, Your Honor, and that's what we, at least that's what I tried to do with this process. So the court said, we're going to let you apply to the government for the Excessive Prosecutorial discretion, isn't that what that case stands for? That's correct

. So, did you apply to the government at any time on Ms. Peraz's behalf for the Excessive Prosecutorial discretion? I did not. And why did you not do so? I was essentially just focused on finding, I did not think it was a way for her to. My understanding at the time was that, you know, after the immigration judge had issued his decision, and I did not ask for prosecutor discretion at the time with the immigration, with the immigration custody enforcement, I thought my chances of asking for prosecutor discretion had been, had, I didn't have any more opportunity to negotiate with the government. Why would you think that? These are the whole purpose of the Morton memorandum to give guidance to the immigration officials nationwide as to which folks should be the target of removal and which, and which other folks should not be. Isn't that what that stands for? That's exactly what it stands for, Your Honor. So, if that's the case, I don't understand how you could have thought that there was some preclusion from seeking prosecutor-torial, prosecutor-torial discretion, especially when you already had seen that the Ninth Circuit in another case had allowed somebody at a similar stage in the proceedings to request prosecutor-torial discretion. The Ninth Circuit did not, did not order the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion, did it? No. It simply said we're going to give you an opportunity to ask. Correct? Correct. But even though you knew that, you never, even to this day, have asked the government for the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion in the case where you've now submitted a brief that sets out your, I think, what you would say is your case about why this person deserves the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion. Have I read this correctly? Yes, Your Honor. Just so the court knows, Ms. Paraza has retained new counsel. I don't know if he has asked. Okay. Why I don't know why he wouldn't? Nothing to lose by asking for the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion. I don't know what you can say possibly if he's hearing that would excuse or explain the many, many times you failed to comply with court orders or misunderstood clear language in court orders

. And otherwise burden the court to deal with repetitive, futile, pointless motions in this case when you could have taken steps that any reasonable lawyer would take early in this case to represent a client. Do you have any explanation how I could possibly find that the procedure of history in this case is that of a lawyer fit to practice in the Ninth Circuit? Your Honor, I'll be the first to tell you. I need to take a step back and reconsider if I should be helping people into Ninth Circuit. Again, my expertise is helping individuals with their visas coming into the United States and helping them stay in the United States with the immigration court and the board of the immigration appeals. Let me just go back with a little anecdote. I have a colleague in San Diego. All he does is appeal at practice and specifically with immigration. And for the longest time, I would ask myself, how does he just do that? I would always ask myself, why doesn't he also venture out and do other things? Well, now I know. There's a lot to uphold as a member of this bar and a lot that this court asked the lawyers to understand. So I'll be the first to tell you, I need to take a step back and I need to really, if I'm going to help people in the Ninth Circuit, I need to really educate myself on practices, the rules and regulations. I don't intend to help anyone at this moment or in the near future. And that's all I could say, Your Honor, these people came to me. They were very scared of what might happen to them in the future. And I tried to do what I could to preserve their appellate rights. But I understand now and after getting my experience with Ms. Paraz's case that I really need to take a look back and really consider if I want to help people in the Ninth Circuit. All right, so I agree with you. I think it's clear to me from my experience that some people are more cut out by their nature to the trial attorneys or first-level attorneys and some other people are by their nature more inclined to be appellate attorneys

. There's not a whole lot of people who fit into both categories. But this level of representation doesn't work at the corner of the appeals. I mean, I can go over your, I'm sure, painfully aware of every problem you had, every time you didn't do something that was pointed out in the order to show cause in Paraza that caused this court to expend scarce judicial resources to handle these matters. And I can't, it's extremely frustrating when we issue an order and then you come back with another motion to reconsider, which is not really what you were doing. You were filing motions to reinstate. And we've already told you what you need to do is file the brief and you come in and say you've paid the sanction. And then I get this brief in the parasycase that you wrote this brief, correct? In the parasycase. So the whole thrust of this brief as I read it is, you were denied an opportunity to seek prosecutorial discretion or the court should somehow direct, give you an opportunity to seek prosecutorial discretion. And that this implicates constitutional issues. I mean, do you, could you make that argument to me here today that that's, that there's merit to that? You're on a, I really just wanted to make sure that she had her, her opportunity to, the answer is no. And the answer is, if you want the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, you ask the government. If they would be willing to exercise prosecutorial discretion and you write the best brief or argument in favor of the equities of your client and say this is why this client fits within the criteria set out in the Morton memo and why you shouldn't, you shouldn't remove her because she's one of the people that should be allowed to remain in the country. And then you wait, it's up to the prosecution whether or not they're going to exercise it. That's it. That's a remedy for it. There's a constitutional issue. There's nothing that prevents you, has ever prevented you from asking for that. That's correct

. All right. Let me ask you some questions. Well, first question I have for you on this, you were, you were ordered to pay sanctions of $2,000 and you said in many occasions that you were moved to reconsider saying you were in the process of paying or made agreement. What's the status of the, of your payment of that is $2,000 in sanctions? It has not yet been paid. It was referred to the attorneys, the US attorney's office is San Diego and they sent me, I told them I couldn't pay all $2,000 upfront and I requested to make the payments and installments, but they wanted to see my income and expenses. So I haven't submitted that to them yet. Okay. And do you intend to do so? I do intend to do so. You know, when the court issues a judgment like this for sanctions, most people pay the sanctions. We don't have to refer it for collection to the US attorney. That, that also is a burden on the court that we have to go through that step. And it also burdens the US attorney's office has many better things to do and to run after you for $2,000. And it's, it's, it's burdening us because now we're having to follow up on them trying to collect $2,000 that they don't want to do because they don't have the resources to do it either. So this is simply multiplying and making worse and already bad situation. So I urge you to resolve that before that gets more serious. I will, Your Honor. Okay. Now you're also ordered to produce all fee agreements

. You produced one. What steps did you take to locate the other fee agreements? I looked in all the files, Your Honor. I could not find a fee agreements. I could not find some of the files. We do have a storage facility where we keep older cases and we could not find, we could not locate specifically the Colossals matter. And essentially we could not find any of the fee agreements and any of the files, Your Honor. Okay. Is it your sworn testimony today that you have fee agreements in every single one of those cases? Yes. And as I said in my response, I, for most of these individuals, I helped them out from the very start. And we, we wrote up agreements to represent them in immigration court. For a flat rate fee, they typically would pay maybe 30%, sometimes 50% of that fee up front and make, and you know, these people don't have a lot of money. So I made arrangements with them to pay $100 a month or $200 a month until they paid off their balance. The course of the proceedings took less time than their fee agreement to pay my office. Instead of writing up a different fee agreement to, you know, handle their appeals, whatever necessary appeals was possible. I agreed to let them just pay off their amount that they owed my office under the initial, you know, the fee agreement that we already created and not require more money from them. Is this something that they knew about when they signed the agreement or just something that you explained to them at the time that they had the appeal? So by, let's say I, more of your clients and I paid everything off before the appeal, but it lost and I needed to appeal, then would you require an additional amount for the appeal? Well, I would at that point, however, these clients, they, some of them, they still haven't paid me. I don't know if I'm just a very lenient and reasonable person with them, but some of them only paid the initial retainer fee and maybe for a few months made up with their balances. But I don't believe there's a time when they made their, I think afterwards, after following the appeals, they paid their balance, but I don't think there was a time to

. What's the filing fee at the Board of Immigration Appeals? It's 100. Really? It was $110? So when, you know, here comes, you want to file the appeal, where's $110? They come from them. So they would have to pay that no matter what. And then the Board of Appeals denies them relief and then you file a petition for review and the Ninth Circuit, that costs how much? 450. 450? 400, 500. How, and where does that money come from? It comes from the client. What if the client doesn't have the money? I, I can only remember one or two occasions when that happened and I paid it upfront for now. We were aware that you could file a motion for the lead to proceed informal poppers for a client who can't afford to pay? I did, but only after the only during this parades case. Because we sent you a number of orders to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for failure to pay fees, order file, a motion for lead to proceed informal poppers for the financial after they bet. Do you recall that? I do recall that. How did you respond? I didn't respond to, we just paid the fees, we just paid the fees. Okay, you just paid the fees, but you just paid the fees and... I don't know, but it was, it was lame. It was after several. Well, let me ask you this too, because this is puzzling to me. You filed the petition for review in parades case in October 15th, October 19th, we sent you the fee, order to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for failure to pay fees or file a lead to proceed informal poppers for them. And then no response a month later we just smashed the case. Then you filed the motion to reopen and you said in your motion to reopen that the petitioner had submitted the payment to you, but we had never received the fees. The fees were never paid. Do you remember why that was? I don't remember, Yanna. This happened twice. That was on January 28th, and then three days later we denied your motion to reopen without purchase renewal, with the payment of fees or informal poppers submission. Then a month and a half later you filed another motion to reopen and again said petitioner submitted payment, but still you had not paid fees. You don't know why that would be. I don't, Yanna. I just remember. Does that sound familiar to you that that was the case? Did you lost the money or applied it somewhere else or? I remember specifically for this case I paid it myself. I don't remember when. You did it, it was either, it was somewhere late, I think late April or early May. Anyway, this was six months or so and more than six months after the petition for review was filed. Now three of the cases, let's move on to some of the other cases. We may come back to Parasol later, but three of the cases were dismissed for failure to, that were dismissed for failure to prosecute, were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. That is not, not fair to, not for failure to pay fees, not for failure to prosecute, not for failure to file a brief, but because of the court of appeals lack jurisdiction. In these cases were Escobita Cardona, Upper Risho Pasquale and Venegas Claro

. And then no response a month later we just smashed the case. Then you filed the motion to reopen and you said in your motion to reopen that the petitioner had submitted the payment to you, but we had never received the fees. The fees were never paid. Do you remember why that was? I don't remember, Yanna. This happened twice. That was on January 28th, and then three days later we denied your motion to reopen without purchase renewal, with the payment of fees or informal poppers submission. Then a month and a half later you filed another motion to reopen and again said petitioner submitted payment, but still you had not paid fees. You don't know why that would be. I don't, Yanna. I just remember. Does that sound familiar to you that that was the case? Did you lost the money or applied it somewhere else or? I remember specifically for this case I paid it myself. I don't remember when. You did it, it was either, it was somewhere late, I think late April or early May. Anyway, this was six months or so and more than six months after the petition for review was filed. Now three of the cases, let's move on to some of the other cases. We may come back to Parasol later, but three of the cases were dismissed for failure to, that were dismissed for failure to prosecute, were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. That is not, not fair to, not for failure to pay fees, not for failure to prosecute, not for failure to file a brief, but because of the court of appeals lack jurisdiction. In these cases were Escobita Cardona, Upper Risho Pasquale and Venegas Claro. Now these were cancellation decisions, denial of cancellation of removal. Were you aware that there would be a jurisdictional problem in the line circuit obtaining review of those decisions? I was not aware at that time, Your Honor. So in those three cases, the court issued an order to show cause why this court has jurisdiction to review the case, why the case shouldn't be dismissed because we don't have jurisdiction to review a denial of cancellation. You didn't respond to any of those orders to show cause, why didn't you respond? I don't have an answer for that, Your Honor. For some of these crimes, I don't remember which one. Okay, so I mean I could ask a lot more questions about this, but I'm not sure it's going to be profitable to do so. I think I understand your position, which as I, when I'm hearing you saying is you really don't, didn't feel and don't feel competent to practice in the line circuit at this stage in your career. Is that a reasonable determination? At this point in my career, no, there's a lot I need to learn. So here's what the options are at this stage for me. I can issue an order deciding all this and suspending you for a lengthy period of time, which I would imagine would be something on the order of two to three years. Require you to take a number of continuing education classes as a prerequisite to you seeking to re-gain admittance to the nine circuit. That's one option. The second option is you can voluntarily resign from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending, in which case I will not issue an order to show cause. I mean, I will not issue a report and recommendation, sending out everything. In either case, however, our order will be filed on the California State Bar and on the executive office for immigration review, both of which have independent and turn a disciplinary processes and they will do whatever they choose to do with respect to your continued practice there. I don't see any other option at this stage. It's just not in anybody's interest for you to continue practicing at the nine circuit. There's no benefit to the clients when you are as unskilled as you are in a public practice

. Now these were cancellation decisions, denial of cancellation of removal. Were you aware that there would be a jurisdictional problem in the line circuit obtaining review of those decisions? I was not aware at that time, Your Honor. So in those three cases, the court issued an order to show cause why this court has jurisdiction to review the case, why the case shouldn't be dismissed because we don't have jurisdiction to review a denial of cancellation. You didn't respond to any of those orders to show cause, why didn't you respond? I don't have an answer for that, Your Honor. For some of these crimes, I don't remember which one. Okay, so I mean I could ask a lot more questions about this, but I'm not sure it's going to be profitable to do so. I think I understand your position, which as I, when I'm hearing you saying is you really don't, didn't feel and don't feel competent to practice in the line circuit at this stage in your career. Is that a reasonable determination? At this point in my career, no, there's a lot I need to learn. So here's what the options are at this stage for me. I can issue an order deciding all this and suspending you for a lengthy period of time, which I would imagine would be something on the order of two to three years. Require you to take a number of continuing education classes as a prerequisite to you seeking to re-gain admittance to the nine circuit. That's one option. The second option is you can voluntarily resign from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending, in which case I will not issue an order to show cause. I mean, I will not issue a report and recommendation, sending out everything. In either case, however, our order will be filed on the California State Bar and on the executive office for immigration review, both of which have independent and turn a disciplinary processes and they will do whatever they choose to do with respect to your continued practice there. I don't see any other option at this stage. It's just not in anybody's interest for you to continue practicing at the nine circuit. There's no benefit to the clients when you are as unskilled as you are in a public practice. So having heard that, do you have any reaction? Yarnor, can I just have you explain again the option where I would voluntarily resign? Well, you can submit a written resignation from the bar of the nine circuit. What I'm going to do in any event after this hearing is over is I have to prepare a report and recommendation to a panel of three judges. I can recommend after sending out all the findings that I would make that you'd be suspended and my sense is that my recommended suspension would be for at least two years. That would be the requirement of continuing education before you could be re-admitted to practice in the court, followed by a period of probation if you were to be admitted to practice in the court. So that's option number one. That would go to a panel of judges. They would rule on it. The second option is you could submit your resignation to the bar of the nine circuit. I would take that resignation request and recommend that the court accept your resignation from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending and that that determination would be also would be served on the California State Bar and the EIO. The EIO are disciplinary unit as would the suspension or the court might approve. So I don't insist upon you making a decision right the second, but I don't see any other options. If I may ask, what does that mean with the charges pending? That means you had an order to show cause that was in the process of being determined. So if they choose to do so, they would have access to the order to show cause to see what the allegations were. I don't really know how they handle it. It might be that they would look at it as if it were a no-low contender a play. Do you know what that is? I'm not going to contest the charge. I'm going to resign from the nine circuit or I can do it. And a report recommendation recommending a suspension which I think would likely be appelled and then so you would be suspended from the nine circuit as opposed to having you resigning from the nine circuit

. So having heard that, do you have any reaction? Yarnor, can I just have you explain again the option where I would voluntarily resign? Well, you can submit a written resignation from the bar of the nine circuit. What I'm going to do in any event after this hearing is over is I have to prepare a report and recommendation to a panel of three judges. I can recommend after sending out all the findings that I would make that you'd be suspended and my sense is that my recommended suspension would be for at least two years. That would be the requirement of continuing education before you could be re-admitted to practice in the court, followed by a period of probation if you were to be admitted to practice in the court. So that's option number one. That would go to a panel of judges. They would rule on it. The second option is you could submit your resignation to the bar of the nine circuit. I would take that resignation request and recommend that the court accept your resignation from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending and that that determination would be also would be served on the California State Bar and the EIO. The EIO are disciplinary unit as would the suspension or the court might approve. So I don't insist upon you making a decision right the second, but I don't see any other options. If I may ask, what does that mean with the charges pending? That means you had an order to show cause that was in the process of being determined. So if they choose to do so, they would have access to the order to show cause to see what the allegations were. I don't really know how they handle it. It might be that they would look at it as if it were a no-low contender a play. Do you know what that is? I'm not going to contest the charge. I'm going to resign from the nine circuit or I can do it. And a report recommendation recommending a suspension which I think would likely be appelled and then so you would be suspended from the nine circuit as opposed to having you resigning from the nine circuit. How these other entities would look at it? I don't know. So when you refer to charges pending, that's for the other entities to have the ability to to so they all understand that it wasn't just Christopher MacGreg decided he doesn't want to practice in the nine circuit anymore and decided to pull out. He was forced out in a sense. He would be free. He would drew rather than having to contest the charges. I understand. Now if you want an amount of time to think about this and respond, I'm willing to give that to you if you would prefer to make a decision now and live with it. I'm also willing to accept that. How much time can I have to take about? About Monday, next Monday. And what would I would have to do by next Monday? You would have to either. Well, by the end of the day Monday, you would have to submit a resignation or I will simply deem that as being your determination that we issue a report and recommendation. You can use the time between now and then to do whatever investigation you deem appropriate as to the collateral effects of those two types of determinations. Okay. If I do voluntarily resign, I don't imagine that I would ever apply for readmittance, but is that a possibility in the future? If you were to voluntarily resign, you would have to reapply with a showing that you're fit to practice in the Ninth Circuit. And given the fact that you resigned with charges pending, we would require you to make a showing that you had for example taken a significant amount of continually legal education classes in appellate practice and an immigration practice. And the interchange of those two. But, you know, I think from what you've told me and in my observation of this, I go back to what I said earlier about some lawyers are cut out to be trial lawyers and some lawyers are cut out to be appellate lawyers. And I think you fall into the trial or category, not the appellate or category

. How these other entities would look at it? I don't know. So when you refer to charges pending, that's for the other entities to have the ability to to so they all understand that it wasn't just Christopher MacGreg decided he doesn't want to practice in the nine circuit anymore and decided to pull out. He was forced out in a sense. He would be free. He would drew rather than having to contest the charges. I understand. Now if you want an amount of time to think about this and respond, I'm willing to give that to you if you would prefer to make a decision now and live with it. I'm also willing to accept that. How much time can I have to take about? About Monday, next Monday. And what would I would have to do by next Monday? You would have to either. Well, by the end of the day Monday, you would have to submit a resignation or I will simply deem that as being your determination that we issue a report and recommendation. You can use the time between now and then to do whatever investigation you deem appropriate as to the collateral effects of those two types of determinations. Okay. If I do voluntarily resign, I don't imagine that I would ever apply for readmittance, but is that a possibility in the future? If you were to voluntarily resign, you would have to reapply with a showing that you're fit to practice in the Ninth Circuit. And given the fact that you resigned with charges pending, we would require you to make a showing that you had for example taken a significant amount of continually legal education classes in appellate practice and an immigration practice. And the interchange of those two. But, you know, I think from what you've told me and in my observation of this, I go back to what I said earlier about some lawyers are cut out to be trial lawyers and some lawyers are cut out to be appellate lawyers. And I think you fall into the trial or category, not the appellate or category. I mean, if this is any indication, it's just like does not show the kind of attention to detail, thoughtfulness, strategic thinking that appellate lawyers use. I mean, your practice that you describe it as a high volume, quick on your feet, practice where you get things done and then move on to the next thing, move on to the next thing. You check your iPhone to find out what the mail is and then you move and you keep moving. That's not the way in appellate lawyer works. You've got to get your sits and thinks a lot and rights and graphs and redrafts and edits and strategizes and reads a lot of cases and stuff. That doesn't sound to me like that you based upon what I see in the work in front of me. I understand that. Am I? So I agree with that. Yes. Okay. All right. So on Monday, I'm going to say, do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. Do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. I do. You can file an official resignation letter. Okay. And then I will recommend that the court accept your resignation with charges pending. Okay

. I mean, if this is any indication, it's just like does not show the kind of attention to detail, thoughtfulness, strategic thinking that appellate lawyers use. I mean, your practice that you describe it as a high volume, quick on your feet, practice where you get things done and then move on to the next thing, move on to the next thing. You check your iPhone to find out what the mail is and then you move and you keep moving. That's not the way in appellate lawyer works. You've got to get your sits and thinks a lot and rights and graphs and redrafts and edits and strategizes and reads a lot of cases and stuff. That doesn't sound to me like that you based upon what I see in the work in front of me. I understand that. Am I? So I agree with that. Yes. Okay. All right. So on Monday, I'm going to say, do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. Do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. I do. You can file an official resignation letter. Okay. And then I will recommend that the court accept your resignation with charges pending. Okay. Well, I could, I think that'll be easier if I just do that. I'm going to give you till Monday to make that call. Okay. I'm going to look for written letter from you to do that. Okay. Is there anything specifically I should indicate in the letter? No. No. I just in this letter, in light of the charges against me or in light of the, in light of my determination, I conclude that it would be in my best interest to resign from the bar that I'm certain. Okay. Please accept my resignation. Okay. It would be sufficient. But I do want you to spend some time for your own well-being and peace of mind to try and figure out what whether there's any difference in terms of how you'll be treated by the California barn by E I O R in terms of your ability to continue practicing at the immigration court and the BIA. Because they may have some consequences there. All right. I'll have to find out what consequences are. All right. There is one matter that we do need to address before we complete this

. Well, I could, I think that'll be easier if I just do that. I'm going to give you till Monday to make that call. Okay. I'm going to look for written letter from you to do that. Okay. Is there anything specifically I should indicate in the letter? No. No. I just in this letter, in light of the charges against me or in light of the, in light of my determination, I conclude that it would be in my best interest to resign from the bar that I'm certain. Okay. Please accept my resignation. Okay. It would be sufficient. But I do want you to spend some time for your own well-being and peace of mind to try and figure out what whether there's any difference in terms of how you'll be treated by the California barn by E I O R in terms of your ability to continue practicing at the immigration court and the BIA. Because they may have some consequences there. All right. I'll have to find out what consequences are. All right. There is one matter that we do need to address before we complete this. And that is the status of your one pending case. Mr. Vazquez? Yes. Exactly. So this brief is now overdue. And I believe that there's an indication somewhere in the records that you intended to seek mediation. I assume for the exercise of prosecutor or discretion, but I don't think anything has been done. As far as I know, this is in sort of a state of limbo. And what is your explanation? I have been actually working on filing this. I was intending to file this before this hearing. But some things came up with my family. So I needed, we are going to, or the plan was to file the request to refer to mediation just like Mr. Vazquez. But I don't know how this is going to affect now if I turn into resignation on Monday. Well, yeah. It's possible for you to be for your resignation to be effective after the conclusion of that case. Or you can locate a pellet counsel, which is what I think should have occurred all along for to represent your client. I'm going to talk to him about that

. And that is the status of your one pending case. Mr. Vazquez? Yes. Exactly. So this brief is now overdue. And I believe that there's an indication somewhere in the records that you intended to seek mediation. I assume for the exercise of prosecutor or discretion, but I don't think anything has been done. As far as I know, this is in sort of a state of limbo. And what is your explanation? I have been actually working on filing this. I was intending to file this before this hearing. But some things came up with my family. So I needed, we are going to, or the plan was to file the request to refer to mediation just like Mr. Vazquez. But I don't know how this is going to affect now if I turn into resignation on Monday. Well, yeah. It's possible for you to be for your resignation to be effective after the conclusion of that case. Or you can locate a pellet counsel, which is what I think should have occurred all along for to represent your client. I'm going to talk to him about that. If I do, if he still wants me to help him, with at least asking for this case to be referred to mediation, how do I, do I just address that on my letter on Monday that you can address that. But I really think you need to get that case to another lawyer. Okay. So I'm reminded that our typical order of resignation when we accept it requires an attorney to withdraw from all cases within 14 days. I see. So you can do a lot within 14 days. So the resignation would not necessarily preclude you from at least getting a letter in and getting another lawyer to go forward with the mediation in the event that seems like that's accepted into the mediation program. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to say? I just, you know, I'm going to think about what I need to do here and how it affects my future. I do just want to extend my apologies to the court. This is not how I, this is my first time in the pellet court. This is not how I envision it being. So I just want to extend my apologies. I do treat all my clients with, you know, with 100% gusto. And so I do just want to let the court know that I do apologize for, you know, what would appear that I take light of a lot of the rules and regulations of this court. Well, I wish it were apparent to the court that you did that. But as you can see from the court's perspective, it's hard to see any gusto. I think that step number one for you is to be very careful about your relationship with all the courts that you appear in

. If I do, if he still wants me to help him, with at least asking for this case to be referred to mediation, how do I, do I just address that on my letter on Monday that you can address that. But I really think you need to get that case to another lawyer. Okay. So I'm reminded that our typical order of resignation when we accept it requires an attorney to withdraw from all cases within 14 days. I see. So you can do a lot within 14 days. So the resignation would not necessarily preclude you from at least getting a letter in and getting another lawyer to go forward with the mediation in the event that seems like that's accepted into the mediation program. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to say? I just, you know, I'm going to think about what I need to do here and how it affects my future. I do just want to extend my apologies to the court. This is not how I, this is my first time in the pellet court. This is not how I envision it being. So I just want to extend my apologies. I do treat all my clients with, you know, with 100% gusto. And so I do just want to let the court know that I do apologize for, you know, what would appear that I take light of a lot of the rules and regulations of this court. Well, I wish it were apparent to the court that you did that. But as you can see from the court's perspective, it's hard to see any gusto. I think that step number one for you is to be very careful about your relationship with all the courts that you appear in. Because you're an officer of the court and you have an obligation to conduct yourself that way and make sure that you're assisting the court in its important duty of administering justice, which has to rely on lawyers to do that. We need you. All right. So this, we will withhold submission of this matter until Monday. And you can respond on Monday. If we don't hear from you by the end of the day, Monday on Tuesday will be preparing our report and recommendation concerning the suspension. If we hear from you by Monday with a request for resignation, I will recommend that it be accepted. All right. Okay. Thank you.

Good afternoon. This is a matter of Christopher McAugreg, Ninth Circuit No. 14-804-80112. And this is a hearing in response to Mr. McAugreg's request for hearing to address the order to show cause why Mr. McAugreg should not be suspended, sanctioned or disbarred for violating the court's rules and orders. Mr. McAugreg, when do you come up and approach the podium here? And let me mention to you that this proceeding is being recorded. So it would be helpful if you spoke into the microphone so we can get a clear recording. And I also wanted to make sure you are aware that you are entitled to be represented by council at this hearing. Do you understand that? I understand, Dr. McAugreg. And you are choosing to represent yourself, correct? That's correct. And the other matter is that I would, I'm going to ask you some questions and I want to make sure that those answers to those questions are under oath. So I'm going to begin by having my courtroom deputy administer the oath to you. Thank you. So you have received the order to show cause. I did. And you've responded to it. I have read your response. And I also don't have the benefit of the opening brief you filed in the matter of Paraza versus Holder, which was one of the matters that was enumerated in the order to show cause. So this is your hearing, Mr. McAugreg, for you to show cause why the court shouldn't take disciplinary action against you. And I'm interested to know how you propose to proceed today. Your honor, I'll just, if I may just explain. First of all, a brief background into my practice of immigration law in San Diego and also afterwards explain the handling of the 11 cases that are alleged by the court. Okay. Let's begin with your background. Let's start with your education. Okay. Well, I graduated from undergrad at UC Santa Barbara in 1996. I worked as a paralegal. Then I went to law school in Sacramento, McDorge School of Law, graduated, I believe in 2000. 2002 and I took the bar exam in December, July 2002 and was admitted to California in December of 2002. Soon thereafter, I moved back to San Diego, where it was in my hometown and trained to practice some areas of immigration law for a few months. Afterwards, a business partner of mine agreed to open up our own office in 2003. Excuse me, when you say business partner, you mean another lawyer who you're having a practice with? Yes. Okay. So, what's that, ladies name? Her name is Rebecca Pedrosa. She's no longer my business partner. So, since then, I've been practicing immigration law. Primarily, our area of expertise is in family visas, obtaining legal residency, citizenship, and also a good chunk of our cases have to involve representing individuals in immigration court, mostly in San Diego, but I do represent some clients in and around California, some of them are out of state. So, I've been doing that since 2003. As a court notes, I applied for admission to the Ninth Circuit on August 19, 2005, after I was contacted by a potential client, he needed help in filing a appeal with the Ninth Circuit. That's my brief background. And how long have you been, how long were you with Rebecca Pedrosa? From 2003 to some time in 2006, unfortunately her mom got cancer. Her parents live up here in San Jose, so she moved up to be with her. You've been a solo practitioner since 2006? Yes, Your Honor. Briefly, my office at the time, it was just me and my secretary, who were pretty much operated as a to-run office, and she kept track of all the files and all that. Again, well unfortunately for her, she also became ill, she has a lupus, and early this year she had to leave my office, so I've been shuffling around different secretaries until I finally have found an assistant just recently. Okay. Start with Pedrosa, since that seems to be the one that has led you here. Okay. Bertha Peraza was a long time client of mine. I don't remember the date she actually hired me, but it was around 2009, 2010, as she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I agreed to help her out with first getting her out of custody and then representing her in Immigration Court. The Immigration proceedings lasted roughly around two years, maybe, two and a half years. There was some discussion about possibly applying for temporary protected status, but unfortunately for Miss Peraza she didn't qualify. So we went forward with her Immigration hearing, the judge denied her applications for relief, and we filed a appeal with the Board of Immigration Appeals. That was the decision, the judge's decision was affirmed, and then we filed a petition for review, which brings up to her filing of a petition review with this court. What was the B.I.'s decision? Essentially just affirmed that Immigration charges decisions. Immigration charges decision. That she did not qualify for the relief. There was some, well Miss Peraza did testify, but there was some, I don't remember the details of the Immigration charges decision at this time, but I can't answer that in detail. I just know that the judge just denied her application for withholding it from a temporary protected, not convention against torture. So then the BIA affirmed, and then on October 15th, 2012 you filed the petition for review in our court. Yes. I filed that petition to, let me just take a step back and just explain my dealings with these clients. And it also might help with explaining how I helped Miss Peraza. After the BIA affirms that the Immigration Judges decision, the clients, well they are very concerned about their chances of staying in the United States. So I agree to help them out with preserving their appellate rights. So we filed the petitions for review, well I do, to file the petition for review to preserve their appellate rights. Because with Miss Peraza's case, my research would her case, I found a case that, where some individuals were not granted the opportunity to apply for prosecutorial discretion with the government. So I decided to take the petition for review that way and argue it with the court to see if Miss Peraza can have her chance to apply for a prosecutorial discretion, which we never had a chance to do when we had our immigration proceedings. When you said you never had a chance to do, did anybody prevent you from asking the government for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion? No, Your Honor. And if I may be clear with that, prosecutorial discretion as far as I know has always been an available mechanism to, you know, essentially negotiate with the government. And depending on the individual's background, if they have crimes, their families ties in the United States, that's always been around. However, in 2012, I believe President Obama issued a mandate to the government, essentially to the lawyers representing the immigration and customs enforcement to, to see if there's a way to lessen the backlog of cases in the immigration court. Miss Peraza's case was, if I remember the timeline correctly, President Obama had not yet issued that mandate. So I did not request prosecutorial discretion with the immigration court at the time. However, through some discussions with some colleagues, they brought up this case, and I don't remember the case offhand right now, Your Honor. But I know it's case you're talking about, but just so that you have the chronology correct, the Morton memorandum, which is what you're talking about, was issued in June of 2011, and that was a year and four months before you filed the petition for review in the Ninth Circuit. Okay. So this was something that you should have been aware of when you filed your petition for review. Yes, Your Honor, and I didn't ask that that's correct, and I didn't ask for prosecutorial discretion with the government. And when you say that the court issued a decision, what do you recall, what that decision was, what the context was, which court are you referring to? The Ninth Circuit, you say you found a case that said that something about the court has made a decision. They asked, I mean, the Ninth Circuit did not essentially make a decision, but they sent a request for guidance from the Department of Homeland Security as to how the Ninth Circuit shall proceed with. I don't think that's exactly precisely correct, isn't it that they allowed the petitioners to stay in the case or gave the petition an opportunity to request prosecutorial discretion in light of this new, which at that time was a new Morton memorandum? Yes, Your Honor, and that's what we, at least that's what I tried to do with this process. So the court said, we're going to let you apply to the government for the Excessive Prosecutorial discretion, isn't that what that case stands for? That's correct. So, did you apply to the government at any time on Ms. Peraz's behalf for the Excessive Prosecutorial discretion? I did not. And why did you not do so? I was essentially just focused on finding, I did not think it was a way for her to. My understanding at the time was that, you know, after the immigration judge had issued his decision, and I did not ask for prosecutor discretion at the time with the immigration, with the immigration custody enforcement, I thought my chances of asking for prosecutor discretion had been, had, I didn't have any more opportunity to negotiate with the government. Why would you think that? These are the whole purpose of the Morton memorandum to give guidance to the immigration officials nationwide as to which folks should be the target of removal and which, and which other folks should not be. Isn't that what that stands for? That's exactly what it stands for, Your Honor. So, if that's the case, I don't understand how you could have thought that there was some preclusion from seeking prosecutor-torial, prosecutor-torial discretion, especially when you already had seen that the Ninth Circuit in another case had allowed somebody at a similar stage in the proceedings to request prosecutor-torial discretion. The Ninth Circuit did not, did not order the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion, did it? No. It simply said we're going to give you an opportunity to ask. Correct? Correct. But even though you knew that, you never, even to this day, have asked the government for the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion in the case where you've now submitted a brief that sets out your, I think, what you would say is your case about why this person deserves the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion. Have I read this correctly? Yes, Your Honor. Just so the court knows, Ms. Paraza has retained new counsel. I don't know if he has asked. Okay. Why I don't know why he wouldn't? Nothing to lose by asking for the exercise of prosecutor-torial discretion. I don't know what you can say possibly if he's hearing that would excuse or explain the many, many times you failed to comply with court orders or misunderstood clear language in court orders. And otherwise burden the court to deal with repetitive, futile, pointless motions in this case when you could have taken steps that any reasonable lawyer would take early in this case to represent a client. Do you have any explanation how I could possibly find that the procedure of history in this case is that of a lawyer fit to practice in the Ninth Circuit? Your Honor, I'll be the first to tell you. I need to take a step back and reconsider if I should be helping people into Ninth Circuit. Again, my expertise is helping individuals with their visas coming into the United States and helping them stay in the United States with the immigration court and the board of the immigration appeals. Let me just go back with a little anecdote. I have a colleague in San Diego. All he does is appeal at practice and specifically with immigration. And for the longest time, I would ask myself, how does he just do that? I would always ask myself, why doesn't he also venture out and do other things? Well, now I know. There's a lot to uphold as a member of this bar and a lot that this court asked the lawyers to understand. So I'll be the first to tell you, I need to take a step back and I need to really, if I'm going to help people in the Ninth Circuit, I need to really educate myself on practices, the rules and regulations. I don't intend to help anyone at this moment or in the near future. And that's all I could say, Your Honor, these people came to me. They were very scared of what might happen to them in the future. And I tried to do what I could to preserve their appellate rights. But I understand now and after getting my experience with Ms. Paraz's case that I really need to take a look back and really consider if I want to help people in the Ninth Circuit. All right, so I agree with you. I think it's clear to me from my experience that some people are more cut out by their nature to the trial attorneys or first-level attorneys and some other people are by their nature more inclined to be appellate attorneys. There's not a whole lot of people who fit into both categories. But this level of representation doesn't work at the corner of the appeals. I mean, I can go over your, I'm sure, painfully aware of every problem you had, every time you didn't do something that was pointed out in the order to show cause in Paraza that caused this court to expend scarce judicial resources to handle these matters. And I can't, it's extremely frustrating when we issue an order and then you come back with another motion to reconsider, which is not really what you were doing. You were filing motions to reinstate. And we've already told you what you need to do is file the brief and you come in and say you've paid the sanction. And then I get this brief in the parasycase that you wrote this brief, correct? In the parasycase. So the whole thrust of this brief as I read it is, you were denied an opportunity to seek prosecutorial discretion or the court should somehow direct, give you an opportunity to seek prosecutorial discretion. And that this implicates constitutional issues. I mean, do you, could you make that argument to me here today that that's, that there's merit to that? You're on a, I really just wanted to make sure that she had her, her opportunity to, the answer is no. And the answer is, if you want the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, you ask the government. If they would be willing to exercise prosecutorial discretion and you write the best brief or argument in favor of the equities of your client and say this is why this client fits within the criteria set out in the Morton memo and why you shouldn't, you shouldn't remove her because she's one of the people that should be allowed to remain in the country. And then you wait, it's up to the prosecution whether or not they're going to exercise it. That's it. That's a remedy for it. There's a constitutional issue. There's nothing that prevents you, has ever prevented you from asking for that. That's correct. All right. Let me ask you some questions. Well, first question I have for you on this, you were, you were ordered to pay sanctions of $2,000 and you said in many occasions that you were moved to reconsider saying you were in the process of paying or made agreement. What's the status of the, of your payment of that is $2,000 in sanctions? It has not yet been paid. It was referred to the attorneys, the US attorney's office is San Diego and they sent me, I told them I couldn't pay all $2,000 upfront and I requested to make the payments and installments, but they wanted to see my income and expenses. So I haven't submitted that to them yet. Okay. And do you intend to do so? I do intend to do so. You know, when the court issues a judgment like this for sanctions, most people pay the sanctions. We don't have to refer it for collection to the US attorney. That, that also is a burden on the court that we have to go through that step. And it also burdens the US attorney's office has many better things to do and to run after you for $2,000. And it's, it's, it's burdening us because now we're having to follow up on them trying to collect $2,000 that they don't want to do because they don't have the resources to do it either. So this is simply multiplying and making worse and already bad situation. So I urge you to resolve that before that gets more serious. I will, Your Honor. Okay. Now you're also ordered to produce all fee agreements. You produced one. What steps did you take to locate the other fee agreements? I looked in all the files, Your Honor. I could not find a fee agreements. I could not find some of the files. We do have a storage facility where we keep older cases and we could not find, we could not locate specifically the Colossals matter. And essentially we could not find any of the fee agreements and any of the files, Your Honor. Okay. Is it your sworn testimony today that you have fee agreements in every single one of those cases? Yes. And as I said in my response, I, for most of these individuals, I helped them out from the very start. And we, we wrote up agreements to represent them in immigration court. For a flat rate fee, they typically would pay maybe 30%, sometimes 50% of that fee up front and make, and you know, these people don't have a lot of money. So I made arrangements with them to pay $100 a month or $200 a month until they paid off their balance. The course of the proceedings took less time than their fee agreement to pay my office. Instead of writing up a different fee agreement to, you know, handle their appeals, whatever necessary appeals was possible. I agreed to let them just pay off their amount that they owed my office under the initial, you know, the fee agreement that we already created and not require more money from them. Is this something that they knew about when they signed the agreement or just something that you explained to them at the time that they had the appeal? So by, let's say I, more of your clients and I paid everything off before the appeal, but it lost and I needed to appeal, then would you require an additional amount for the appeal? Well, I would at that point, however, these clients, they, some of them, they still haven't paid me. I don't know if I'm just a very lenient and reasonable person with them, but some of them only paid the initial retainer fee and maybe for a few months made up with their balances. But I don't believe there's a time when they made their, I think afterwards, after following the appeals, they paid their balance, but I don't think there was a time to. What's the filing fee at the Board of Immigration Appeals? It's 100. Really? It was $110? So when, you know, here comes, you want to file the appeal, where's $110? They come from them. So they would have to pay that no matter what. And then the Board of Appeals denies them relief and then you file a petition for review and the Ninth Circuit, that costs how much? 450. 450? 400, 500. How, and where does that money come from? It comes from the client. What if the client doesn't have the money? I, I can only remember one or two occasions when that happened and I paid it upfront for now. We were aware that you could file a motion for the lead to proceed informal poppers for a client who can't afford to pay? I did, but only after the only during this parades case. Because we sent you a number of orders to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for failure to pay fees, order file, a motion for lead to proceed informal poppers for the financial after they bet. Do you recall that? I do recall that. How did you respond? I didn't respond to, we just paid the fees, we just paid the fees. Okay, you just paid the fees, but you just paid the fees and... I don't know, but it was, it was lame. It was after several. Well, let me ask you this too, because this is puzzling to me. You filed the petition for review in parades case in October 15th, October 19th, we sent you the fee, order to show cause why the case should not be dismissed for failure to pay fees or file a lead to proceed informal poppers for them. And then no response a month later we just smashed the case. Then you filed the motion to reopen and you said in your motion to reopen that the petitioner had submitted the payment to you, but we had never received the fees. The fees were never paid. Do you remember why that was? I don't remember, Yanna. This happened twice. That was on January 28th, and then three days later we denied your motion to reopen without purchase renewal, with the payment of fees or informal poppers submission. Then a month and a half later you filed another motion to reopen and again said petitioner submitted payment, but still you had not paid fees. You don't know why that would be. I don't, Yanna. I just remember. Does that sound familiar to you that that was the case? Did you lost the money or applied it somewhere else or? I remember specifically for this case I paid it myself. I don't remember when. You did it, it was either, it was somewhere late, I think late April or early May. Anyway, this was six months or so and more than six months after the petition for review was filed. Now three of the cases, let's move on to some of the other cases. We may come back to Parasol later, but three of the cases were dismissed for failure to, that were dismissed for failure to prosecute, were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. That is not, not fair to, not for failure to pay fees, not for failure to prosecute, not for failure to file a brief, but because of the court of appeals lack jurisdiction. In these cases were Escobita Cardona, Upper Risho Pasquale and Venegas Claro. Now these were cancellation decisions, denial of cancellation of removal. Were you aware that there would be a jurisdictional problem in the line circuit obtaining review of those decisions? I was not aware at that time, Your Honor. So in those three cases, the court issued an order to show cause why this court has jurisdiction to review the case, why the case shouldn't be dismissed because we don't have jurisdiction to review a denial of cancellation. You didn't respond to any of those orders to show cause, why didn't you respond? I don't have an answer for that, Your Honor. For some of these crimes, I don't remember which one. Okay, so I mean I could ask a lot more questions about this, but I'm not sure it's going to be profitable to do so. I think I understand your position, which as I, when I'm hearing you saying is you really don't, didn't feel and don't feel competent to practice in the line circuit at this stage in your career. Is that a reasonable determination? At this point in my career, no, there's a lot I need to learn. So here's what the options are at this stage for me. I can issue an order deciding all this and suspending you for a lengthy period of time, which I would imagine would be something on the order of two to three years. Require you to take a number of continuing education classes as a prerequisite to you seeking to re-gain admittance to the nine circuit. That's one option. The second option is you can voluntarily resign from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending, in which case I will not issue an order to show cause. I mean, I will not issue a report and recommendation, sending out everything. In either case, however, our order will be filed on the California State Bar and on the executive office for immigration review, both of which have independent and turn a disciplinary processes and they will do whatever they choose to do with respect to your continued practice there. I don't see any other option at this stage. It's just not in anybody's interest for you to continue practicing at the nine circuit. There's no benefit to the clients when you are as unskilled as you are in a public practice. So having heard that, do you have any reaction? Yarnor, can I just have you explain again the option where I would voluntarily resign? Well, you can submit a written resignation from the bar of the nine circuit. What I'm going to do in any event after this hearing is over is I have to prepare a report and recommendation to a panel of three judges. I can recommend after sending out all the findings that I would make that you'd be suspended and my sense is that my recommended suspension would be for at least two years. That would be the requirement of continuing education before you could be re-admitted to practice in the court, followed by a period of probation if you were to be admitted to practice in the court. So that's option number one. That would go to a panel of judges. They would rule on it. The second option is you could submit your resignation to the bar of the nine circuit. I would take that resignation request and recommend that the court accept your resignation from the bar of the nine circuit with charges pending and that that determination would be also would be served on the California State Bar and the EIO. The EIO are disciplinary unit as would the suspension or the court might approve. So I don't insist upon you making a decision right the second, but I don't see any other options. If I may ask, what does that mean with the charges pending? That means you had an order to show cause that was in the process of being determined. So if they choose to do so, they would have access to the order to show cause to see what the allegations were. I don't really know how they handle it. It might be that they would look at it as if it were a no-low contender a play. Do you know what that is? I'm not going to contest the charge. I'm going to resign from the nine circuit or I can do it. And a report recommendation recommending a suspension which I think would likely be appelled and then so you would be suspended from the nine circuit as opposed to having you resigning from the nine circuit. How these other entities would look at it? I don't know. So when you refer to charges pending, that's for the other entities to have the ability to to so they all understand that it wasn't just Christopher MacGreg decided he doesn't want to practice in the nine circuit anymore and decided to pull out. He was forced out in a sense. He would be free. He would drew rather than having to contest the charges. I understand. Now if you want an amount of time to think about this and respond, I'm willing to give that to you if you would prefer to make a decision now and live with it. I'm also willing to accept that. How much time can I have to take about? About Monday, next Monday. And what would I would have to do by next Monday? You would have to either. Well, by the end of the day Monday, you would have to submit a resignation or I will simply deem that as being your determination that we issue a report and recommendation. You can use the time between now and then to do whatever investigation you deem appropriate as to the collateral effects of those two types of determinations. Okay. If I do voluntarily resign, I don't imagine that I would ever apply for readmittance, but is that a possibility in the future? If you were to voluntarily resign, you would have to reapply with a showing that you're fit to practice in the Ninth Circuit. And given the fact that you resigned with charges pending, we would require you to make a showing that you had for example taken a significant amount of continually legal education classes in appellate practice and an immigration practice. And the interchange of those two. But, you know, I think from what you've told me and in my observation of this, I go back to what I said earlier about some lawyers are cut out to be trial lawyers and some lawyers are cut out to be appellate lawyers. And I think you fall into the trial or category, not the appellate or category. I mean, if this is any indication, it's just like does not show the kind of attention to detail, thoughtfulness, strategic thinking that appellate lawyers use. I mean, your practice that you describe it as a high volume, quick on your feet, practice where you get things done and then move on to the next thing, move on to the next thing. You check your iPhone to find out what the mail is and then you move and you keep moving. That's not the way in appellate lawyer works. You've got to get your sits and thinks a lot and rights and graphs and redrafts and edits and strategizes and reads a lot of cases and stuff. That doesn't sound to me like that you based upon what I see in the work in front of me. I understand that. Am I? So I agree with that. Yes. Okay. All right. So on Monday, I'm going to say, do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. Do you have contact information that you do about the future of? Yes. I do. You can file an official resignation letter. Okay. And then I will recommend that the court accept your resignation with charges pending. Okay. Well, I could, I think that'll be easier if I just do that. I'm going to give you till Monday to make that call. Okay. I'm going to look for written letter from you to do that. Okay. Is there anything specifically I should indicate in the letter? No. No. I just in this letter, in light of the charges against me or in light of the, in light of my determination, I conclude that it would be in my best interest to resign from the bar that I'm certain. Okay. Please accept my resignation. Okay. It would be sufficient. But I do want you to spend some time for your own well-being and peace of mind to try and figure out what whether there's any difference in terms of how you'll be treated by the California barn by E I O R in terms of your ability to continue practicing at the immigration court and the BIA. Because they may have some consequences there. All right. I'll have to find out what consequences are. All right. There is one matter that we do need to address before we complete this. And that is the status of your one pending case. Mr. Vazquez? Yes. Exactly. So this brief is now overdue. And I believe that there's an indication somewhere in the records that you intended to seek mediation. I assume for the exercise of prosecutor or discretion, but I don't think anything has been done. As far as I know, this is in sort of a state of limbo. And what is your explanation? I have been actually working on filing this. I was intending to file this before this hearing. But some things came up with my family. So I needed, we are going to, or the plan was to file the request to refer to mediation just like Mr. Vazquez. But I don't know how this is going to affect now if I turn into resignation on Monday. Well, yeah. It's possible for you to be for your resignation to be effective after the conclusion of that case. Or you can locate a pellet counsel, which is what I think should have occurred all along for to represent your client. I'm going to talk to him about that. If I do, if he still wants me to help him, with at least asking for this case to be referred to mediation, how do I, do I just address that on my letter on Monday that you can address that. But I really think you need to get that case to another lawyer. Okay. So I'm reminded that our typical order of resignation when we accept it requires an attorney to withdraw from all cases within 14 days. I see. So you can do a lot within 14 days. So the resignation would not necessarily preclude you from at least getting a letter in and getting another lawyer to go forward with the mediation in the event that seems like that's accepted into the mediation program. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to say? I just, you know, I'm going to think about what I need to do here and how it affects my future. I do just want to extend my apologies to the court. This is not how I, this is my first time in the pellet court. This is not how I envision it being. So I just want to extend my apologies. I do treat all my clients with, you know, with 100% gusto. And so I do just want to let the court know that I do apologize for, you know, what would appear that I take light of a lot of the rules and regulations of this court. Well, I wish it were apparent to the court that you did that. But as you can see from the court's perspective, it's hard to see any gusto. I think that step number one for you is to be very careful about your relationship with all the courts that you appear in. Because you're an officer of the court and you have an obligation to conduct yourself that way and make sure that you're assisting the court in its important duty of administering justice, which has to rely on lawyers to do that. We need you. All right. So this, we will withhold submission of this matter until Monday. And you can respond on Monday. If we don't hear from you by the end of the day, Monday on Tuesday will be preparing our report and recommendation concerning the suspension. If we hear from you by Monday with a request for resignation, I will recommend that it be accepted. All right. Okay. Thank you