The misconduct that Rachael Rollins is alleged to have committed as US attorney is so unusual and varied that there is little precedent for what discipline she might receive, if any, from the state agency that regulates lawyers, according to legal ethics experts.
Rollins resigned as the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts in May after two federal investigations found that she had misused her position by leaking confidential information and then lying about it to investigators, among other allegations, including at least three that were violations of federal laws.
Lawyers in Massachusetts who violate ethics rules are subject to discipline from a state agency called the Board of Bar Overseers, which issues recommendations to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court for final determination. Punishments can range from a private letter of admonition to disbarment, or banishment from the profession.
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It is unclear if the board has begun investigating Rollins. Its general counsel, Joseph Berman, said, “We don’t comment on pending cases.”
When the board launches a formal investigation, it notifies the target. A lawyer for Rollins, Michael Bromwich, declined to comment.
The severity of punishment from the Bar Overseers typically depends on precedents from earlier cases. But the board has not had a case before it in recent memory with a comparable set of circumstances, lawyers said, making it difficult to predict how the board might act.
Experts said any investigation into Rollins would be lengthy. “I’d be surprised if there was a resolution in less than 18 months,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert and emeritus professor at the New York University School of Law.
The most serious allegations against Rollins are that she leaked a confidential Department of Justice document to a reporter, lied to investigators under oath, and committed two violations of the Hatch Act, a federal law that bars officials from engaging in partisan political activity. Some of those allegations related to her behind-the-scenes effort to help Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo in his electoral campaign to succeed her as Suffolk district attorney.
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During interviews with investigators, Rollins said she did not believe the document she shared was privileged or confidential.
The allegations, especially of lying and leaking information, are among the most serious forms of misconduct in the eyes of legal regulators, Gillers said.
The alleged leak, he said, was especially egregious because it amounted to a public release of confidential client information. As the US attorney for Massachusetts, he said, “her client was the United States.”
Marsha Kazarosian, an attorney and former member of the Massachusetts Bar Overseers, said the penalty for lying under oath is typically a suspension of a lawyer’s license for up to two years.
In one case, from 2009, a lawyer was suspended for six months for making false statements to police officers and a prosecutor and for lying under oath in a criminal trial.
That case was similar in some respects to the allegations against Rollins: the lawyer, Fawn Balliro, made the false statements in her personal capacity, not while representing a client. (Typically, the board views infractions related to client representation as more serious.)
Similarly, Rollins made her alleged false statements while she was the subject of the federal investigations, not while working on a case being prosecuted by her office.
But there is also a key difference between the cases. Balliro’s punishment may have been lighter due to the circumstances of her false statements. She was a victim of domestic violence trying to protect her boyfriend from prosecution, according to court records. Balliro declined to comment.
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Disciplinary boards can always consider mitigating circumstances before determining punishments, Gillers said.
It is not clear if there are mitigating circumstances in Rollins’s situation. The two federal reports — from the Office of Special Counsel and the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General — accuse her of lying to cover up her own misconduct.
Generally, false statements alone do not lead to disbarment, Kazarosian said, unless they are combined with other serious misconduct.
At least two high-ranking Massachusetts officials were disbarred after felony convictions this century.
Former Massachusetts House speaker Salvatore DiMasi was disbarred in 2014 after being convicted of numerous felonies, including wire fraud. Another former House speaker, Thomas Finneran, lost his license in 2007 after an obstruction of justice conviction stemming from false testimony he gave under oath.
Rollins, by contrast, is not facing prosecution.
The Office of Inspector General found that Rollins violated the law by making false statements under oath to investigators and referred the matter to the US attorney general’s office, which declined to bring charges against her, according to the report.
Separately, the Office of Special Counsel found that her two alleged Hatch Act violations — including her leak of a DOJ document in an attempt to influence last year’s Suffolk District Attorney election — were “among the most egregious transgressions of the Act that OSC has ever investigated.” She has not faced prosecution for these violations, either.
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The absence of a criminal prosecution can complicate the board’s work, experts said.
The board’s investigators, if they choose to pursue Rollins, must make the case themselves. They may have to subpoena records, including interview transcripts and text messages, from federal investigators, said James S. Bolan, a former assistant counsel in the board’s investigative unit. They may call witnesses themselves. Rollins would have the opportunity to challenge any evidence and cross-examine witnesses, which she was not able to do before the federal investigations were released.
In other high-profile cases, false statements by federal officials have led to license suspensions. Former president Bill Clinton received a five-year suspension of his license in Arkansas after lying to federal officials about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. In 2018, former US attorney Amanda Marshall was suspended for 90 days after admitting to making false statements and interfering with a federal investigation about an affair she had with a subordinate.
The core allegations against Rollins include an alleged attempt to swing the election for her successor as district attorney in favor of her preferred candidate, Arroyo. To do that, she allegedly created the appearance of a federal investigation into Arroyo’s opponent, Kevin Hayden, by seeking a recusal from any such investigation. Then she leaked the recusal letter to a Boston Herald reporter, according to the inspector general report.
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Arroyo is facing an unrelated board investigation into allegations that he omitted past brushes with the law from his 2014 board application to become a Massachusetts attorney, according to his lawyer, Arnold Rosenfeld. Arroyo denied any wrongdoing in responses submitted to the board in December, said Rosenfeld, who added that his client has not been notified of any investigation of him involving his connections to Rollins.
Board disciplinary actions are handed down as recommendations from the board, which the Supreme Judicial Court then affirms or modifies. Outcomes of disciplinary cases are hard to predict, experts said, because both the board and the SJC have broad discretion to consider outside factors that can lessen or heighten punishments.
For Finneran, the disbarred former House speaker, the court determined that the mitigating factors were not enough to save him.
“The respondent’s long and distinguished career of public service and many pro bono services . . . did not rise to the level of special mitigating factors,” the court wrote. “[T]he respondent’s misconduct implicated both the integrity of the judicial system and the honesty of a member of the bar.”
Matt Stout of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com. Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her @shelleymurph.