A.C. No. 5819 - HEIRS OF SIXTO L. TAN, SR., REPRESENTED BY RECTO A. TAN, COMPLAINANTS, VS. ATTY. NESTOR B. BELTRAN.

Ruling

Accordingly, this Court will not adopt an unsubstantiated resolution of the Board of Governors, especially when jurisprudence shows that we have penalized lawyers for filing belated motions and pleadings. In the resolution of this Court in Reontoy , [25] we suspended the counsel therein from the practice of law for two months, given that his belated filing of an appeal caused his client to lose the case. In Fernandez v. Novero, Jr. , [26] we likewise suspended the respondent counsel for a month after he filed a motion for reconsideration outside the reglementary period. In Barbuco v. Beltran , [27] this Court imposed a six-month suspension on the lawyer, who had belatedly filed a pleading, among other derelictions. We stressed in that case that the failure to file a brief within the reglementary period certainly constituted inexcusable negligence, more so if the delay of 43 days resulted in the dismissal of the appeal. Respondent failed to inform complainants of the RTC Order requiring the payment of full docket fees. Respondent argues that he was no longer bound to inform complainants of the RTC Order requiring the payment of full docket fees, given that he had already moved to withdraw as counsel with the conformity of the latter. We find that argument unjustified. Mercado v. Commission on Higher Education [28] is instructive on the effect of the withdrawal of counsel with the conformity of the client: As a rule, the withdrawal of a counsel from a case made with the written conformity of the client takes effect once the same is filed with the court. The leading case of Arambulo v. Court of Appeals laid out the rule that, in general, such kind of a withdrawal does not require any further action or approval from the court in order to be effective. In contrast, the norm with respect to withdrawals of counsels without the written conformity of the client is that they only take effect after their approval by the court. The rule that the withdrawal of a counsel with the written conformity of the client is immediately effective once filed in court, however, is not absolute. When the counsel's impending withdrawal with the written conformity of the client would leave the latter with no legal representation in the case , it is an accepted practice for courts to order the deferment of the effectivity of such withdrawal until such time that it becomes certain that service of court processes and other papers to the party-client would not thereby be compromised - either by the due substitution of the withdrawing counsel in the case or by the express assurance of the party-­client that he now undertakes to himself receive serviceable processes and other papers. Adoption by courts of such a practice in that particular context, while neither mandatory nor sanctioned by a specific provision of the Rules of Court, is nevertheless justified as part of their inherent power to see to it that the potency of judicial processes and judgment are preserved. (Emphasis in