## Facts

- Terry Green and multiple co-defendants were charged in Manatee County with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering under Florida’s RICO Act in a large, gang-related prosecution.
- The circuit court exhausted the local registry of available court-appointed counsel and created an “involuntary-appointment list” of lawyers who had declined appointments under the statutory fee scheme.
- After excusing two lawyers for insufficient experience, the court involuntarily appointed Gregory Hagopian, a sole practitioner, to represent Green.
- The case involved extensive discovery and preparation demands, including hundreds of witnesses and numerous law-enforcement reports.
- Hagopian moved to withdraw, asserting the appointment would require at least hundreds of hours of work, additional overhead at his expense, and would prevent him from serving existing clients and from maintaining his practice.
- Hagopian argued the capped/flat-fee compensation framework administered by the Justice Administrative Commission would not reasonably compensate the required work and would create a conflict between his economic survival and effective representation.
- After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied the motion to withdraw.
- Hagopian sought interlocutory review by petition for writ of certiorari (or prohibition); the appellate court treated the filing as certiorari.

## Issues

1. Whether an involuntarily appointed sole practitioner established “good cause” to withdraw under Rule 4-6.2 where the appointment would impose an unreasonable financial burden and impair counsel’s ability to meet ethical duties to existing clients.
2. Whether the trial court’s denial of withdrawal, on the evidentiary record presented, departed from the essential requirements of law so as to warrant certiorari relief.

## Decision

- The Second District granted the petition for writ of certiorari.
- The court quashed the order denying Hagopian’s motion to withdraw.
- The court held Hagopian established grounds under Rule 4-6.2 to withdraw because the appointment imposed an unreasonable financial burden and threatened compliance with professional obligations.
- The court concluded the refusal to permit withdrawal, given the unrebutted showing of case magnitude and compensation limits, was a departure from the essential requirements of law.
- The court determined certiorari was appropriate because the ongoing financial and ethical harm from compelled continued representation could not be adequately remedied by plenary appeal after final judgment.

## Legal Principles

- A lawyer must make reasonable efforts to accept court appointments, but Rule 4-6.2 permits declination or withdrawal for good cause, including when representation is likely to result in an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer.
- A trial court’s authority to appoint private counsel for indigent defendants is limited by professional-conduct rules; an appointment that effectively forces counsel into an ethical conflict or threatens the lawyer’s ability to competently serve all clients exceeds those limits.
- When a trial court compels continued representation despite a sufficient Rule 4-6.2 showing, certiorari may lie because the harm from compelled representation is immediate and not meaningfully curable on post-judgment appeal.

## Conclusion

The court held that compelling a sole practitioner to remain as involuntarily appointed counsel in an exceptionally large RICO prosecution, under a compensation scheme that would impose an unreasonable financial burden and jeopardize ethical duties to other clients, departed from the essential requirements of law; the denial of withdrawal was quashed on certiorari.


Hagopian v. Justice Admin. Comm’n, 18 So. 3d 625 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009)