A.C. No. 11241 - Professional Services, Inc. vs. Rivera

Professional Services, Inc. (complainant) is engaged in medical care and hospital management.
Atty. Socrates R. Rivera (respondent) was hired as Head of the Legal Services Department in September 2008.
Atty. Rivera’s role involved determining and pursuing legal actions, primarily collection cases, to protect complainant’s interests.

Atty. Rivera was authorized to request cash advances to cover expenses related to filing collection cases, subject to liquidation backed by official receipts.
From 2009 to 2012, Atty. Rivera misrepresented that he filed civil actions and paid filing fees on behalf of the complainant, while no such actions were actually filed.
He requested and received P14,358,477.15 in cash advances purportedly for filing fees and related expenses but pocketed the money.
Atty. Rivera submitted falsified cash advance slips, attaching fabricated first pages of complaints to support his requests.
The accounting department, relying on these documents, processed checks payable to him, which he immediately withdrew or deposited.

Atty. Rivera submitted liquidation slips with fake official receipts, which were later certified as spurious by the Clerk of Court of Pasig RTC.
The scheme was uncovered when Atty. Rivera requested additional cash advances, prompting a report on his unpaid advances.
Upon inquiry, it was revealed that no liquidation slips were submitted to the CFO, and Atty. Rivera forged the signatures of his immediate supervisor, Atty. Martin Samson, and the CFO on liquidation documents.
An inventory of Atty. Rivera’s files uncovered rubber stamps bearing engravings of court offices, used to lend credibility to his forgeries.

On January 10, 2013, the complainant filed a verified complaint for disbarment before the Commission on Bar Discipline (CBD) of the IBP.
Atty. Rivera failed to file his answer despite extensions and did not appear at mandatory conferences, resulting in default.
The IBP Investigating Commissioner recommended disbarment for grave misconduct.

Previously suspended for one year for dishonest acts including allowing unauthorized filing by a non-lawyer.
Recently disbarred in a separate case for misrepresenting to have filed a petition and providing fake judicial decisions to a client.

Whether Atty. Socrates R. Rivera committed grave professional misconduct and violated the Code of Professional Responsibility and Lawyer’s Oath by defrauding the complainant.
Whether the appropriate sanction is disbarment and an order to return the misappropriated amount.
How to deal with the issuance of penalty given that Atty. Rivera has already been previously disbarred.