(Reuters) - Massachusetts' top court ruled Thursday that a Duane Morris litigation partner got off too easy when she was suspended for six months for overbilling clients at her prior law firm, saying her actions reflected manifest "dishonesty" and deserved a two-year suspension instead.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned a single justice's decision to impose a six-month suspension on Doreen Zankowski, saying her billing practices while at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr showed a "reckless indifference" to what her clients should be charged.

Justice David Lowy, writing for the 4-0 court, said that by all accounts, Zankowski had worked "exceptionally hard, was one of the firm's highest revenue producers, and achieved excellent results for her clients."

"But intentionally billing for work that was not performed, or not performed by the person to whom it is ascribed, is professional misconduct," Lowy wrote.

He said the evidence presented during a disciplinary proceeding amply established that Zankowski added fictional hours to her clients' bills and "intentionally inflated the hours billed well beyond those that were worked."

That mirrored the finding of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, which found that Zankowski had improperly claimed hours for work done by associates and billed for depositions she did not attend.

But Justice Frank Gaziano, a member of the top court tasked with reviewing the decision, determined in 2019 that the two-year suspension would be "too severe" and that the board failed to account for mitigating factors in Zankowski's life.

Her attorney, Thomas Mullen, had argued she never intended to do anything wrong and had simply deployed a "chaotic billing process." She testified that she neglected her physical health, was often sleep-deprived and often worked over 12 hours a day. Her sister had also been diagnosed with cancer and later died.

Lowy, in a 28-page decision, acknowledged the "troubling" workload and family pressures that Zankowski faced in 2015 but said the evidence did not support finding that those factors contributed to her misconduct.

Mullen declined to comment. Duane Morris, where Zankowski remains a partner after already serving a six-month suspension, had no immediate comment.

Zankowski joined Duane Morris in 2016, after a five-year stint at Saul Ewing. Earlier in her career, she worked at the engineering and construction company CDM Smith, and her practice has included litigation, construction and corporate matters.

She joined Saul Ewing initially as an income partner and became an equity partner in 2015, at which point her compensation was tied to the firm's profits, performance and fees generated.

As a salaried, income partner, she earned $700,000 before any merit bonuses, but as an equity partner, she was placed in a lower base salary tier of $575,000, with the potential to earn a share of the firm's profits and a bonus.

According to the court, in 2015, Zankowski did not generally maintain contemporaneous billing records, and instead submitted reports based on her assistant's reconstruction of time entries based on notes, emails, court filings and calendar entries.

In 2015, Zankowski told her department chair she worked 3,173 billable hours and more than 720 nonbillable hours. She added more than 450 hours of time to the hours reflected on her clients' draft bills, according to the ruling.

Following an investigation, Saul Ewing ultimately found her clients were overbilled by $216,000. The firm either refunded to the clients or credited them for the overcharges.

The case is In the Matter of Doreen Zankowski, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, No. SJC-12850.

For the Office of Bar Counsel: Pamela Harbeson

For Zankowski: Thomas Mullen