High court gaffe nets Hub attorney apology

That Christopher P. Sullivan, not Christopher P. Sullivan

WASHINGTON — If you live in New England and have an Irish name, chances are someone else has it, too. And even the nation’s highest court can make a mistake.

Those two maxims converged in an odd case of mistaken identity when the U.S. Supreme Court suspended a prominent Boston attorney from practicing before the high court and began disbarment proceedings.

Problem is, the court had the wrong guy. That led to an extraordinary high court mea culpa yesterday delivered to Hingham resident Christopher P. Sullivan, a veteran civil litigator, partner at the Boston office of Robins Kaplan, and president-elect of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

“Due to mistaken identity, the order suspending Christopher Patrick Sullivan of Boston, Massachusetts from the practice of law in this Court, dated May 15, 2017, is vacated,” stated an unsigned order from the justices yesterday.

The judicial blunder quickly made the rounds on Twitter. But Sullivan and his colleagues knew it was a case of court confusion from the start.

“We knew right away it was a case of mistaken identity,” Anthony Froio, managing partner of Robins Kaplan’s Boston office, told the Herald yesterday. Sullivan is in the middle of a multi-week trial in Baltimore and was unavailable to comment, Froio said.

The Supreme slip-up stemmed from a New York State disbarment order against another Christopher Patrick Sullivan — a Rutland, Vt., city attorney who was convicted in 2015 of two felonies as a result of a fatal DUI hit-and-run.

The New York clerk’s office notified the Supreme Court of the disciplinary action — standard procedure. The Supreme Court clerk’s office identified a member of the high court’s bar of the same name who is also licensed in New York State, and issued an order suspending him.

Boston’s Christopher Patrick Sullivan quickly contacted the court to declare his innocence.

“The Clerk’s Office was then able to confirm that the Christopher P. Sullivan who was disbarred in New York is a different person from the individual who was the subject of the show cause order, and that the Mr. Sullivan who was disbarred in New York is not a member of the Supreme Court Bar,” said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

That led to yesterday’s order — and an apology from the court to the misidentified Boston attorney.

“They did it very quickly and very professionally, and it was clearly an honest mistake,” Froio said. “As you know, there are probably a lot of Christopher Patrick Sullivans in the world.”

‘As you know, there are probably a lot of Christopher Patrick Sullivans in the world.’ — ANTHONY FROIO Managing partner, Robins Kaplan