U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan today denied an application for a legal “stay” to temporarily halt the disbarment of controversial Hawaii foreclosure attorney Gary Victor Dubin.

Kagan’s denial of Dubin’s appeal was reported today on the Supreme Court’s website.

The Hawaii Supreme Court’s Order of Disbarment becomes effective next Monday, November 9, and Kagan’s decision appears to mean Dubin will soon lose his license to practice law.

Kagan’s action followed the Hawaii Supreme Court’s denial of Dubin’s similar request for a stay in its Order of Disbarment. The Hawaii court denied the stay request on October 21, leaving November 9, a week from today, as the effective date of Dubin’s disbarment. The court also ordered that copies of its decision be transmitted to the U.S. District Court in Honolulu and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Kagan is the justice assigned to the the 9th Circuit for review of applications like this one.

The bad news for Dubin doesn’t necessarily stop there. The Office of the Disciplinary Counsel accused Dubin of making “false and misleading” representations when appealing to the U.S. District Court in Honolulu and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay.

In an October 19 document filed with the Hawaii Supreme Court, ODC alleges the attorney essentially tricked the two federal courts into delaying reciprocal disbarment proceedings.

On or about October 3, 2020, Respondent produced what appeared to be a filed “Application for Emergency Stay Submitted to the Honorable Elena Kagan Pending the Filing of Petition for Writ of Certiorari.” The document was signed electronically by Respondent and dated October 3, 2010.

Both courts had responded by approving the temporary stay. However, ODC subsequently found Dubin’s application had not actually been filed or had been pulled back.

“But in either case, Respondent represented to both federal courts that he had filed the Application when he either had not done so or had withdrawn it,” ODC argued in its opposition to granting a stay. “Those courts relied at least in part on his false or misleading representation in staying their reciprocal proceedings.”

The U.S. Supreme Court docket for Dubin’s application to Justice Kagan shows it was filed last Friday, October 30, nearly a month after Dubin said it had been filed.

Whether Kagan’s denial will prompt the Honolulu and 9th Circuit courts to lift their earlier stays and proceed with reciprocal discipline remains to be seen.

Further, ODC disclosed there are current “20 pending disciplinary complaints against Respondent, and there are nine pending claims with the Lawyer’s Fund for Client Protection.”

In another filing with the Hawaii Supreme Court, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel said Dubin had missed the deadline to pay court-ordered restitution of $19,885 to clients in one case. As as result, “ODC needs to take action to reduce the restitution order to a judgment to pursue collections.”

ODC told the court that “the longer Respondent is permitted to practice, the more clients he will harm.”

Dubin, in repeated legal filings, has argued he has been denied due process throughout the disciplinary proceedings, a position reviewed and rejected several times by the Hawaii Supreme Court, which found it to be without merit.