VanBibber, who was admitted to practice in Ohio in 2018, was already serving a stayed two-year suspension when he committed the new violations between 2023 and 2024. The misconduct centered on three separate incidents: neglecting a child custody case in Fairfield County, making sexually explicit advances toward a client's partner through social media, and providing false information to disciplinary authorities investigating his conduct.
In the Fairfield County case, VanBibber double-booked himself for hearings 80 miles apart on the same morning, then lied to the magistrate about why he failed to appear at a settlement conference. 'VanBibber falsely advised the magistrate that the reason for his failure to appear for the settlement conference was that a court staffer had told his assistant that he could appear by phone or Zoom and that the court would send a Zoom link,' the court found. In reality, court staff had explicitly told his assistant that a motion would be required to appear virtually.
The court was particularly critical of VanBibber's false statements in court filings, noting his claim that one hearing 'was scheduled after' another when the opposite was true. As the court observed, 'That assertion was false because the Casto trial was scheduled on March 17 and the Schmelzer final hearing was scheduled on June 30.' Even after opposing counsel pointed out the falsehood, VanBibber 'made no effort to correct his false statement.'
The sexual misconduct arose when VanBibber represented Joshua Miller in a child support case in March 2024. Miller's girlfriend J.H. had recommended VanBibber and attended meetings about the case. On April 9, VanBibber messaged J.H. through Snapchat asking if she was single, then after learning she was dating his client, sent increasingly explicit messages including 'I want to fucking rail you' and asking if she 'wanna fuck meeeeeeeeeee.' When J.H. confronted him, VanBibber admitted he was intoxicated but 'meant what he had said.'
VanBibber's problems with disciplinary authorities began in September 2023 and continued through 2024, with repeated failures to respond to requests for information despite multiple extensions and warnings. As disciplinary counsel noted in testimony, VanBibber 'failed to respond to an email relator sent the following week to inquire about the status of his response' and continued this pattern even after being warned 'that no further extensions would be granted.'
The court found VanBibber's conduct particularly egregious because it occurred while his previous disciplinary case was pending, in which he had already been found to have provided false information to law enforcement and failed to cooperate with investigators. The court imposed an actual two-year suspension rather than the indefinite suspension typically required for client neglect coupled with failure to cooperate, finding some mitigation in VanBibber's eventual cooperation at the hearing.
In determining the sanction, the court compared VanBibber's case to several precedents involving false statements to tribunals and inappropriate sexual conduct with clients' family members. The court distinguished cases like Disciplinary Counsel v. Carter, where an attorney received two years with one year stayed, noting that VanBibber's misconduct 'did not include any inappropriate physical contact' but emphasized that 'the combination of VanBibber's multiple violations—which include the neglect of a client's legal matter, making false statements to a tribunal and to relator, and inappropriate sexual advances toward his client's significant other—exceeds the misconduct at issue in each of those cases.'