In re PRB Docket No. 2013.160

Summary

The Vermont Supreme Court adopted a Professional Responsibility Board decision admonishing an attorney for holding uncashed checks totaling $124,797.40 in a title-insurance trust account for seven months. The court found that the practice commingled the attorney’s funds with third-party funds in violation of Vermont Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15(a)(1), but caused no harm and involved substantial mitigating factors. The sanction was admonition by Disciplinary Counsel.

Holdings

1. A lawyer's failure to negotiate checks payable to the lawyer's firm, while retaining those checks in a trust account, results in commingling the lawyer's funds with funds of a third party and violates Vermont Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15(a)(1).
2. Admonition by Disciplinary Counsel is an appropriate sanction where the lawyer negligently mishandles property, causes little or no actual or potential injury, and substantial mitigating factors outweigh the aggravating factor of substantial experience.

Questions Presented

1. Whether holding uncashed checks payable to the respondent's firm in a title-insurance trust account constituted commingling of the firm's funds with third-party funds in violation of Vermont Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15(a)(1).
2. Whether admonition by Disciplinary Counsel was an appropriate sanction for the negligent trust-account violation in light of the absence of injury and the mitigating and aggravating factors.

Disposition

other