COMPLAINT FOR PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT

Re: Foster Samuel Burton Friedman, Esq.

Wade, Grimes, Friedman, Meinken & Leischner, PLLC

616 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

Submitted by: Valerie Gagnon

511 Princess Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314

To: Virginia State Bar — Office of Bar Counsel

1111 East Main Street, Suite 700, Richmond, Virginia 23219

Date: August 24, 2026

To the Virginia State Bar, Office of Bar Counsel:

I am resubmitting this complaint against Foster Samuel Burton Friedman, Esq. with substantial new evidence that was not available at the time of my original filing. This is not a duplicate complaint. It is a materially different and significantly more documented filing, based on a full forensic review of the Amended and Restated Revocable Living Trust of Pierre Paul Gagnon, signed February 26, 2020, drafted in its entirety by Mr. Friedman.

The Virginia State Bar’s August 6, 2025 response, signed by Intake Counsel James C. Bodie, declined to act on the grounds that my concerns raised questions of “mental capacity” — an issue the Bar deemed outside its jurisdiction. With respect, that characterization misread the complaint entirely. What I am alleging is not a question of my parents’ mental capacity. What I am alleging is attorney self-dealing, structural conflict of interest, and the deliberate architectural design of a trust document to benefit the attorney at the expense of the named beneficiary.

The evidence is in the document Mr. Friedman himself drafted.

I. THE THREE-HAT PROBLEM: SELF-DEALING ON ITS FACE

Mr. Friedman simultaneously occupied three roles in the Pierre Paul Gagnon Trust:

  • 1. Drafting Attorney — he wrote every word of the February 26, 2020 document
  • 2. Trust Protector — named explicitly and by name in Article XIII
  • 3. Acting Trustee — currently controlling all distributions to the named beneficiary, Valerie Gagnon

This is not a technical overlap. This is a structural conflict of interest that Mr. Friedman designed, drafted, and named himself into — in the same document, at the same time. No independent counsel reviewed this arrangement on behalf of the beneficiary. No disclosure was made to Valerie Gagnon. No waiver was sought or obtained.

Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7 prohibits representation when a concurrent conflict of interest exists. Virginia Rule 1.8 prohibits a lawyer from preparing an instrument that gives the lawyer a substantial gift from a client. Mr. Friedman did not receive a gift — he received control. Control over the trust. Control over distributions. Control over the beneficiary’s financial future. That is worse.

II. ARTICLE XIII — POWERS WRITTEN FOR ONE PURPOSE

Article XIII of the trust grants the Trust Protector — Mr. Friedman — the following powers, exercisable without consent of any beneficiary, without notice, and without court approval:

  • – Appoint or remove Trustees at any time, for any reason, with or without cause
  • – Move the trust to another state or country
  • – Modify or reform any provision of the trust
  • – Apply modifications retroactively to the inception of the trust
  • – Act even with a direct conflict of interest (Section F — No Conflict clause)
  • – Face no liability for exercise or non-exercise of these powers

Mr. Friedman drafted these powers for himself. He then named his own colleague — Gretchyn Gay Meinken, Esq., a partner at his own firm, Wade, Grimes, Friedman, Meinken & Leischner — as Successor Trust Protector. Should Mr. Friedman be unable to serve, his firm is also named as backup Trustee.

At every point of succession, control returns to Mr. Friedman or his firm. This is not coincidence. This is architecture.

The Section F “No Conflict” clause — drafted by Mr. Friedman, granting himself immunity from conflict-of-interest challenges — is particularly egregious. An attorney cannot draft his own ethical immunity into a document and then invoke it as a shield. That is precisely the conduct the Rules of Professional Conduct exist to prevent.

III. FINCA INTERNATIONAL — THE UNEXPLAINED INSERTION

Article IX of the trust directs that upon Valerie Gagnon’s death, the entirety of the remaining estate passes to FINCA International (1201 15th Street NW, 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20005).

The Gagnon family had no relationship with FINCA International. No prior charitable giving. No documented connection of any kind. FINCA was not mentioned in any prior version of the trust.

FINCA International was inserted into this document by Foster Friedman in the February 26, 2020 restatement.

I am formally asking the Bar to investigate: What is the relationship between Foster S. B. Friedman, Wade, Grimes, Friedman, Meinken & Leischner, PLLC, and FINCA International? Did Mr. Friedman or his firm have any financial, professional, or personal connection to FINCA at the time of drafting? Did any member of his firm serve on FINCA’s board, receive compensation from FINCA, or maintain any relationship that would explain this insertion?

If such a connection exists and was not disclosed, it is a material conflict of interest in the drafting of this document.

IV. THE VALERIE GAGNON TRUST — LANGUAGE WEAPONIZED

Article X of the trust creates the Valerie Gagnon Trust, ostensibly for Valerie’s benefit. Section C contains the following language:

“The primary concern and objective is to provide, in a liberal manner, for the health, education, maintenance and support of VALERIE GAGNON and that the preservation of principal is not as important as the accomplishment of these objectives. It is Settlor’s specific intention that the Trustee administer the Trust to ensure that the needs of VALERIE GAGNON are provided for during her lifetime WITHOUT ANY CONCERN WHATSOEVER FOR THE INTEREST OF ANY REMAINDERMAN.”

On its face, this language appears protective. In practice, it has been used as a discretionary gate. The word “may” in Section B — “the Trustee may distribute” — gives Mr. Friedman, as Acting Trustee, sole and absolute discretion over every distribution.

The result: Gaetane Gagnon died in 2025. The Valerie Gagnon Trust was fully funded. Valerie Gagnon received $47,000. Her calculated entitlement — from her mother’s personal investment account alone, not counting Pierre Paul Trust assets — was $240,000. The shortfall is a minimum of $193,000, and the full trust value remains unknown because Mr. Friedman has refused to provide a formal accounting despite legal demand.

A Trustee who drafts his own discretionary powers, refuses to account, and distributes a fraction of the documented estate is not administering a trust. He is controlling a beneficiary.

V. REFUSAL TO ACCOUNT

I have formally demanded a complete accounting of the Pierre Paul Gagnon Trust assets, distributions, and current holdings. Mr. Friedman has refused to provide one.

Virginia Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15 requires a lawyer holding fiduciary property to keep complete records and render appropriate accountings. Mr. Friedman’s refusal to account — while simultaneously serving as Acting Trustee with sole discretionary distribution authority — is a standalone violation, independent of every other issue raised in this complaint.

VI. WHAT I AM REQUESTING

I am asking the Virginia State Bar to:

  • 1. Investigate the triple conflict — drafting attorney, Trust Protector, and Acting Trustee — as a violation of Rules 1.7 and 1.8
  • 2. Investigate the FINCA insertion and any undisclosed relationship between Mr. Friedman, his firm, and FINCA International
  • 3. Investigate the Article XIII self-dealing provisions, including the No Conflict clause Mr. Friedman drafted for his own benefit
  • 4. Investigate the refusal to provide a formal accounting as a violation of Rule 1.15
  • 5. Investigate the Successor Trust Protector appointment of Mr. Friedman’s own firm partner as a further conflict of interest

This is not a dispute about mental capacity. This is a documented record of an attorney who used his position as drafter to install himself as controller, named his own firm as every successor, inserted an unexplained charitable beneficiary with no family connection, granted himself immunity from conflict challenges in the very document he drafted, and has since refused to account for a minimum $193,000 shortfall to the named beneficiary.

The document is the evidence. Mr. Friedman wrote every word of it.

Mr. Friedman's current public role

Foster Samuel Burton Friedman, Esq. — the subject of this complaint — currently serves as Deputy Commissioner of Accounts for the City of Alexandria, Virginia.

Why this appointment matters

This is not an incidental professional credential. The Commissioner of Accounts office in Virginia is the body that supervises the administration of trusts and estates filed through the Circuit Court. It reviews fiduciary accountings. It oversees the conduct of exactly the category of trustee that Mr. Friedman is alleged to be in this complaint.

Direct implications for this complaint

  1. Mr. Friedman oversees fiduciary accountability for the same class of conduct he is accused of. He sits in a supervisory position over the very type of trustee misconduct — refusal to account, self-dealing, failure to distribute to the named beneficiary — that this complaint alleges he committed.
  2. Any accounting demand brought through the Alexandria Circuit Court would be processed by or near his office. The institutional pathway through which a beneficiary compels a trustee to account runs directly through the office Mr. Friedman now holds.
  3. His appointment creates a conflict of interest at the institutional level, not merely the individual level. This is not a lawyer with a private conflict. This is a man who drafted his own control into a family trust document, refused to account to the named beneficiary, and then accepted a public appointment that places him in proximity to the very oversight mechanism that beneficiary would need to use against him.
  4. The Virginia State Bar must determine whether Mr. Friedman disclosed this complaint — or the underlying conduct — when he was considered for this appointment. If he did not, that failure of disclosure is itself a matter of professional conduct.

Specific questions for investigation

I am formally asking the Bar to investigate:

  • When Mr. Friedman was appointed to this position
  • Whether the conduct underlying this complaint was disclosed during that appointment process
  • Whether his continued service in that role, while this complaint is pending, constitutes an ongoing conflict requiring his recusal or removal from that office

Why this belongs before the Bar

The Virginia State Bar exists precisely for situations where an attorney's private misconduct intersects with his public power. This is that situation. The man who refused to account to a beneficiary for a minimum $193,000 shortfall now holds a public office whose function is to ensure that trustees account to beneficiaries.

That is not a coincidence. That is a structural problem. And it belongs before this Bar.

Respectfully submitted,

Valerie Gagnon

511 Princess Street

Alexandria, Virginia 22314