Judge suspends Kari Lake’s lawyer for lying to Supreme Court

The state’s chief disciplinary judge, Margaret Downie, said Bryan Blehm told the judges that the records showed “indisputably” that at least 35,563 ballots were illegally inserted into the system in the 2022 gubernatorial election. The Supreme Court ruled that was a lie and fined Blehm and his co-counsel Kurt Olsen $2,000.

However, the Supreme Court’s decision did not end the case, as the Arizona State Bar Association filed a motion to disqualify Blehm from practicing law for six months and one day.

That would have meant that he would have had to apply for reinstatement before he could return to work in Arizona. Blehm would then have had to prove “by clear and convincing evidence” that he had been rehabilitated, had complied with all applicable disciplinary measures and regulations, and had demonstrated “fitness and competence to practice.”

In her ruling Friday, Downie said there was ample evidence to support such a harsh sentence, ranging from numerous other offenses initially alleged to the fact that Blehm is an experienced attorney to his refusal to admit the illegal nature of his conduct.

“The Bar Association’s fear that the defendant will behave similarly in the future is not unfounded and is partly supported by the documents available,” she wrote.

But Downie said she and other members of the court’s disciplinary panel concluded there were opposing factors, including that this was Blehm’s first disciplinary case.

“And the misrepresentations in question were so obvious that there was little chance they would mislead the Arizona Supreme Court,” she said.

Downie said Blehm failed to appear at a disciplinary committee hearing when it considered the appropriate punishment. Still, she said, the committee agreed to give him the benefit of the doubt — for now.

“The hearing panel concludes that a long-term suspension is excessive for a first offense that, while serious, involves relatively isolated and easily identifiable false statements,” Downie wrote. “However, if the defendant behaves unethically in the future, a more severe penalty may well be warranted.”

The panel’s decision, which will take effect in 30 days, is final unless Blehm asks the Supreme Court to intervene.

He did not immediately respond to several messages seeking comment Friday, nor was there any comment from Lake, the Republican who continues to seek to overturn the 2022 gubernatorial election, which she lost to Democrat Kari Lake by 17,117 votes.

Lying to the Supreme Court was only part of the original charge against Blehm. Downie and the disciplinary committee agreed to drop a separate charge that accused him of failing to exercise “reasonable care” in representing his client.

In his initial response to the bar association’s complaint, Blehm acknowledged that he may not have been up to the task of representing Lake in her efforts to overturn the election.

He wrote that Lake’s legal bid “should have been handled by a much larger firm with the resources to do so.” But Blehm said many lawyers were reluctant to take on the legal system – as he himself had done in election matters – because they feared being punished by the courts.

Blehm said Lake was “represented by a small sole proprietor with little to no resources.”

A parallel lawsuit against Olsen is still pending.

A disciplinary hearing against him has not yet taken place, but because Olsen is not licensed to practice in Arizona – he was allowed to practice here under a rule that allows out-of-state lawyers to appear on a case-by-case basis – the most severe punishment that could be imposed is a formal reprimand.