dissenting.

I would suspend this respondent from the practice of law.

1 1 In this disciplinary proceeding against a lawyer, the issues to be decided are: (1) Does the record submitted for our examination provide sufficient evidence for a meaningful de novo consideration of the complaint and of its disposition?1 and (2) Is a public *694reprimand an appropriate disciplinary sanction for respondent's breach of professional ethics? We answer both questions in the affirmative.

I

INTRODUCTION TO THE RECORD

12 The Oklahoma Bar Association (Bar) commenced this disciplinary proceeding on March 6, 2009 against Jeffrey Allen Martin (respondent or Martin), a licensed lawyer, by filing a formal complaint in accordance with the provisions of Rule 6.1 of the Rules Governing Disciplinary Proceedings (RGDP).2 The complaint alleges in one count violations of the RGDP and of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct (ORPC).3 A trial panel of the Professional Responsibility Tribunal (trial panel or panel) conducted hearings (the PRT hearings) on 14 October 2009 to consider the charges. The trial panel recognized for the record the parties' admitted stipulations (of facts, conclusions of law and agreed disciplinary recommendation). Respondent concedes (by stipulation) that his conduct violates RGDP Rule 1.34 and ORPC Rules 5.3,5 5.5(b)6 and 8.4(a).7 Prior to the PRT hearing the Bar withdrew its reliance on ORPC Rule 84(c).8 Upon completion of the hearing and after consideration of the testimony and exhibits on file, the trial panel issued a report which found that respondent violated RGDP Rule 1.8, ORPC Rules 5.3, *6955.5, 8.4(a), as well as two rules not included in the Bar's complaint or in the parties' stipulations-ORPC Rules 54(a@)9 and 5.4(b).10 The panel recommends that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for six months and that he be directed to pay the costs of this proceeding.

II

THE RECORD BEFORE THE COURT PROVIDES SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE FOR A MEANINGFUL DE Novo CONSIDERATION OF ALL FACTS RELEVANT TO THIS PROCEEDING

13 In a bar disciplinary proceeding the court functions as an adjudicative licensing authority that exercises exclusive original as well as final state cognizance.11 Its jurisdiction rests on the court's constitutionally vested, nondelegable power to regulate the practice of law, including the licensure, eth-ies, and discipline of this state's legal practitioners.12 In deciding whether discipline is warranted and what sanction, if any, is to be imposed for the misconduct charged, the court conducts a full-scale, nondeferential, de movo examination of all relevant facts,13 in which the conclusions and recommendations of the trial panel are neither binding nor persuasive.14 In this undertaking we are not restricted by the seope-of-review rules that govern corrective relief on appeal or on cer-tiorari, proceedings in which another tribunal's findings of fact may have to be left undisturbed by adherence to law-imposed standards of deference.15

14 The court's duty can be discharged only if the trial panel submits to us a complete record of the proceedings.16 Our *696initial task is to ascertain whether the tendered record is sufficient to permit (1) this court's independent determination of the facts and (2) the performance of its task in fashioning an appropriate discipline. The latter is that which (a) is consistent with the discipline imposed upon other lawyers who have committed similar acts of professional misconduct and (b) avoids the vice of visiting disparate treatment upon the offending lawyer.17

T5 Having carefully serutinized the record submitted to us in this proceeding, we conclude that it is adequate for de novo consideration of respondent's alleged professional misconduct.

III

THE CHARGES AGAINST RESPONDENT

Count I

T6 The charges against respondent arise from his failure properly to supervise a non-lawyer employee, Mark Wingo (Wingo). Respondent met Wingo in the spring of 2006 when he came to respondent's law office to inquire about employment. Wingo told him that one of respondent's lawyer friends had referred him and suggested that he seek a job with respondent. At their initial meeting Wingo told respondent that he was on probation after having served time in prison for a "white collar" crime. He informed respondent that although he operated a business in the same building under the name of Legal Defense and Research Center, he needed a job to satisfy the requirements of his probation. Wingo showed respondent his office space and explained that he provided legal support services, such as photocopying, a task called "bates stamping" and other paralegal work.

T7 In May of 2006 respondent agreed to help Wingo by putting him on the law firm's payroll. According to their verbal arrangement, Wingo would call his business the Jeff Martin Research Center (JM Research Center or Center). Wingo was to operate it as a self-sustaining enterprise by earning service fees that were to be used to defray his business costs, including salaries and expenses. Wingo was to run the business as an employee and be responsible for all losses incurred by him. Respondent would be compensated by a percentage of the income generated. There was no agreement to share profits and losses as partners.

€8 Respondent admits that even though the Center was set up under his name, he neither did a background check on Wingo nor took any steps to find out what services, if any, Wingo was actually providing. Neither did respondent have any direct daily contact with Wingo's operations. Initially, when respondent received funds generated by Wingo's business, they were deposited into his general operating account and Win-go's expenses were paid from those funds. Respondent assumed the money generated by Wingo's operations was for work that had been completed. Later respondent set up a separate bank account for Wingo's business in the name of Jeff Martin Research Center (JMRC account). Respondent then transferred the unexpended balance of the Wingo-generated funds out of his operating account into the JMRC account. Respondent made all deposits and wrote all checks on that account. Another person who had been working with Wingo was also placed on respondent's payroll. A payroll would be processed only if there were sufficient funds in the JMRC account. Respondent terminated his business relationship with Wingo in October 2006 after Wingo cashed a check that he had been instructed to hold until there were *697enough funds in the JMRC account to cover it.

The Westcotts' Grievance

19 The grievance by the Westcotts arises from services allegedly provided by Wingo and the Jeff Martin Research Center to David A. Westcott and his parents, Wayman and Jean Westcott (Westcotts). Wingo met David Westcott while they were both incarcerated in the same federal prison. Based upon Wingo's representations, the Westeotts agreed to hire him upon his release from prison to assist David Westcott in the filing of a request for postconviction relief and a petition for writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. From January of 2006 through April of 2007 the Westeotts paid Wingo approximately $19,000 for services he claimed to be performing. They initially paid Wingo $5,000 of this amount before Wingo had established a business relationship with respondent. After he was put on respondent's payroll Wingo misrepresented to the Westcott family that he was working on their son's case with respondent, who, as their son's lawyer, would argue the matter on appeal. Wingo induced Wayman West-cott (a) to sign a contract, without respondent's knowledge or consent, for legal services to be provided by the JM Research Center on behalf of David Westcott 18 and (b) to pay a $12,000 fee, leaving a balance of $6,500 payable in monthly installments of $200. In June 2006 the Westeotts wrote a $12,000 check payable to Jeff Martin and made ten monthly installment payments starting in July 2006 through April 2007.19 Respondent continued to deposit the West-cotts' checks after his relationship with Win-go had been terminated in October 2006.

10 Respondent claimed it was not until six months after Wingo's termination that he first learned of Wingo's unauthorized activities and misrepresentations that resulted in the Westcotts' grievance.20 Numerous emails were then exchanged between respondent, Wingo and the Westcotts. Respondent made several attempts to assist the West-cotts. Respondent's malpractice carrier made full restitution to the Westcotts and respondent himself paid the $5,000 deductible amount of his policy.

IV

A LAWYER'S DUTY TO SUPERVISE LAY PERSONNEL

$11 The Bar charged respondent with failure to supervise a nonlawyer employee, who was allowed to use respondent's name to operate a business that provided legal support and research services.

112 A lawyer is duty-bound to supervise the work done by lay personnel and stands ultimately responsible for work done by the entire nonlawyer staff.21 The *698work of unlicensed personnel for a lawyer is done by them as agents of the lawyer who employs them.22 It is the lawyer who must exercise complete, though indirect, professional control over the actions of the employees. A lawyer has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the internal processing system of his office is in compliance with his professional obligations. A licensed legal professional who fails properly to supervise unlicensed personnel is guilty of dereliction of duty. ORPC Rule 5.3.23 Violating the Rules of Professional Conduct through the acts performed by another is professional misconduct under ORPC Rule 8.4(3).24

113 Respondent's utter failure to supervise any of Wingo's work activities not only enabled Wingo to misrepresent respondent's individual involvement in the case but also to engage in the unauthorized practice of law by performing legal services in the form of legal research, the alleged preparation of a motion for postconviction relief and of a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court without proper supervision by a licensed lawyer. Respondent's dereliction violated ORPC Rule 5.5(b), which provides that "a lawyer shall not ... assist a person who is not a member of the bar in the performance of activity that constitutes the unauthorized practice of law." 25

114 The vicarious 26 responsibility of a lawyer subjects that professional both to private-law (civil) liability 27 as well as to the Bar's disciplinary process of public law.28 Today's opinion deals exclusively with the respondent's breach of his public-law duty as a member of the Bar. A disciplinary dereliction that comes under the rubric of a *699lawyer's breach of vicarious professional responsibility may not be treated as less serious than one of the same nature which was brought to enforee a practitioner's personal disciplinary responsibility by his own act or omission. Both breaches must be dealt with as being of equal seriousness. The discipline to be imposed for these derelictions should not vary one iota if the facts are identical. We must henee look at the respondent's breach in the same light as we would if this case were here to enforce his own disciplinary offense rather than his vicarious responsibility for breach by a third party acting as respondent's agent.29 In short, although the respondent was not the actor, the act in suit is imputed in law to his own doing. The gravity of the breach is equal to that which would apply if committed individually by the respondent's own act or omission.

Simply and concisely stated, a lawyer's vicarious public-law liability, in the context of a disciplinary bar proceeding, means that all licensed lawyers are fully and absolutely accountable for all breaches of professional ethics committed not only by fellow lawyers in the law firm, but also by those persons who are unlicensed or lay employees of a lawyer or of an association of lawyers in a single firm, regardless of the firm's name or of its precise legal entity.

16 The record shows that respondent fell woefully short of his obligation to supervise a nonlawyer employee in the operation of a business that provided legal support and research services under respondent's name and to make reasonable efforts to ensure that Wingo's conduct was compatible with the respondent's professional obligations as a licensed practitioner. By his utter dereliction of duty respondent made the offense possible. He gave the offender a home from which to harm innocent people. While respondent may be an entirely innocent victim of a designing employee, that does not reduce his culpability in law one iota. He is vicariously liable in disciplinary responsibility for all the misdeeds of his unlicensed employee which went unnoticed until the victim complained.

Rule 5.4(a) and (b) Violation

117 The trial panel found that respondent's conduct violated two additional rules-ORPC Rule 5.4(a) and (b).30 Subsection (a) prohibits a lawyer or law firm from sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer and subsection (b) prohibits a lawyer from entering into a partnership with a nonlawyer if any one of the partnership's activities constitutes the practice of law.

18 In support of the rule's violation, the trial panel found that (a) respondent had formed the Jeff Martin Research Center as a repository for funds collected by Wingo and (b) respondent entered into an agreement with Wingo to share fees generated by Win-go's "rendering of legal services, albeit unauthorized."

{19 We disagree with the trial panel's conclusion that respondent violated ORPC Rule 5.4(a) and (b). The complaint does not allege facts and the record fails to establish, by stipulation or otherwise, that respondent shared legal fees with Wingo from any of his clients' cases. Under the cireumstances here shown the Westeotts cannot be regarded as respondent's clients for disciplinary purposes. Neither is there any indication in the record that respondent had entered into a partnership with Wingo which included activities that constituted the practice of law. Respondent's verbal arrangement with Win-go dealt with a business that was to be separate from his law practice. It was respondent's professional dereliction in failing to supervise a nonlawyer employee that provided the opportunity for Wingo to engage independently in pure practice of law.

*700y

CONCESSION AS TO AVAILABLE MITIGATION

120 Mitigating cireumstances may be considered in assessing the appropriate quantum of discipline.31 The trial panel report as well as the record reveal factors to be weighed for purposes of mitigation. The respondent (1) has been practicing law since April 30, 19983 and has never been disciplined for professional misconduct, (2) has readily acknowledged his professional misconduct, (8) is remorseful and has accepted full responsibility for his actions, (4) has cooperated fully and completely in the Bar's investigation of the grievance; (5) has caused no financial loss to any client or third party as a result of his professional misconduct, (6) made full restitution to the Westeotts 32 and (7) has implemented new office procedures designed to help him better supervise in the future his office staff and to manage his caseload.

121 We take today all these factors into account when fashioning the appropriate measure of discipline to be imposed on the respondent for the derelictions here in suit.

VI

DISCIPLINE TO BE IMPOSED

122 A government's license to practice law is conferred not for the benefit of the individual licensee, but rather for that of the public.33 The permissible norms of lawyers' professional conduct constitute public law. It is enforceable by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in its capacity as the profession's central licensing authority. The disciplinary process, including the imposition of a sanction, serves a very important public interest. It is designed not to punish the delinquent lawyer, but to safeguard the interests of the public, those of the judiciary as well as of the legal profession.34 Disciplinary sanctions serve not only to deter the offending lawyer from committing similar acts in the future, but also operate to put other practitioners on notice that departures from ethical norms will not be tolerated.35 The measure of discipline to be imposed upon an offending lawyer should always be consistent with the discipline visited upon other practitioners for similar acts or omissions which constitute professional misconduct.36

A.

1 23 The trial panel has recommended that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for six months. The panel considered two aggravating factors in making its determination of the appropriate discipline to be imposed.

124 The first factor. In the course of this disciplinary proceeding it came to the attention of the trial panel that on a prior occasion respondent had experienced adverse consequences of neglect when another lawyer in his firm missed the passing of limitations period in a previous, entirely separate case. That consequence of neglect met with the respondent's restitution to the satisfaction of the harmed client.

1 25 Factor one added to the panel's accusatory arsenal a matter that is res inter altos *701acta, one that is entirely foreign to the Bar's allegations in this disciplinary proceeding.37 That negligent occurrence dealt with a completely different client. No grievance was ever filed against the respondent and he was never charged with a rule violation for this negligence. We will not consider this attempted and improper panel's addition in assessing the appropriate quantum of discipline for respondent's unprofessional conduct.

126 The second factor. Respondent admitted that he deposited into his operating account monies paid by the Westeotts without first determining what the money was for and whether it was for work already performed or not yet earned. The trial panel concluded that at the time the respondent received the Westcotts' money, "the work had not yet been done." The panel based its views on an "e-mail exchange" and the "facts found" by the trial judge in "David West-cott's case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma." 38 According to the trial panel "the money should have been deposited, if at all, in respondent's trust account."

% 27 There is no clear and convincing evidentiary support for the panel's sua sponte consideration of this factor for enhancement of discipline. The panel has provided no specific language from the e-mail exchange between respondent, Wingo, David Westcott and his parents (and we can find none) that reveals respondent received the Westcott money from Wingo before the work was done.39 There is simply nothing in the e-mail exchange to indicate that this had in fact occurred. Furthermore, there is no finding of fact in the federal court's opinion to support the trial panel's conclusion. The federal trial judge merely repeated David Westeott's allegation that, "he hired attorney Jeff Martin to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, and that Martin failed to do so, despite being paid." Assuming arguendo there had been such a finding of fact, it would be inadmissible here. That case dealt with a postconviction motion in a criminal case brought in a federal court. It had nothing to do with any party to this disciplinary proceeding. Any finding made therein cannot be relied upon here, but must be proven by clear and convincing evidence in this case.

$28 In short, clear and convincing evidence does not support the trial panel's sua sponte consideration of these aggravating circumstances for the purpose of enhancing respondent's discipline.

B.

129 The parties hereto stipulated in the disciplinary proceedings and now urge *702before this court that a private reprimand is the appropriate sanction for respondent's acts of professional misconduct.40 We disagree and on due consideration of the entire record impose a public reprimand.

130 Laxity in supervising persons who work under a lawyer's control is not likely to be effectively deterred unless the offending lawyer's public reputation is affected and its harmful consequences become economically much too costly to bear. Licensed lawyers' responsibility for derelictions committed by lay persons acting as their agents must not be watered down, diminished or ignored. Its prompt, rigid and faithful enforcement is absolutely necessary to guard against serious professional abuse of clients. Moreover, breach of viearious responsibility is not to be treated as a lesser offense for which milder discipline should be the offender's due. The seriousness of an act or of failure to act is rather to be measured by the quantum of harm that was inflicted. When guided by this rationale in choosing the discipline to be imposed we do not stop to pause even for a short moment to consider whether the responsibility of the offender that was breached may be regarded as personal or viearious.

T31 Public reprimand should be viewed as an adequate measure of discipline where the harm dealt the client has been fully compensated and the respondent actively assisted the Bar counsel in the investigation and prosecution of the complaint from the very inception and through the disciplinary Bar process.

132 Our independent record review and the combination of the delineated factors lead us today to conclude the appropriate measure of discipline to be fashioned for respondent's breach of professional discipline is a public reprimand combined with imposition of liability for costs incurred in this proceeding.

VIL

SUMMARY

133 In sum, the record bears clear and convincing proof that respondent's participation in improper conduct violated the rules that govern a practitioner's professional responsibility. After a thorough review of the record and upon due recognition of all the factors tendered to us in mitigation,

34 RESPONDENT IS ORDERED DISCIPLINED (1) BY A PUBLIC REPRLI-MAND AND (2) BY IMPOSITION OF COSTS OF THIS PROCEEDING IN THE AMOUNT OF $925.79, WHOSE PAY. MENT SHALL BE DUE NOT LATER THAN NINETY DAYS AFTER THIS OPINION BECOMES FINAL.