Ethics
Fired California bar government director ought to get 30-day suspension, panel says, citing ‘responsibility to be truthful’
Then-State Sen. Joseph Dunn of California at a listening to on the California State Capitol in Sacramento on March 30, 2005. Dunn was the State Bar of California’s government director between 2010 and 2014. (Picture by Wealthy Pedroncelli/The Related Press)
The previous government director of the State Bar of California ought to obtain a brief suspension for misrepresentations that he made to the state bar’s board of trustees about funding for a visit to Mongolia, in keeping with a evaluation panel of the State Bar Courtroom of California.
Joseph Dunn, the state bar’s government director between 2010 and 2014, needs to be positioned on probationary standing for one 12 months, and he needs to be suspended from regulation apply for the primary 30 days of the probation interval, in keeping with the evaluation division of the State Bar Courtroom of California.
Reuters and Law.com have protection of the July 2 recommendation.
Dunn had wrongly instructed trustees that no state bar funds can be used to fund a visit to Mongolia to assist reform its authorized system, a listening to choose had concluded. Dunn was fired in November 2014 after the bar spent greater than $7,000 on the journey, $5,000 of which was repaid by the now-collapsed Girardi Keese regulation agency, in keeping with an internal report and the evaluation division’s resolution.
The appeals panel affirmed the listening to choose’s discovering that Dunn was answerable for two acts of “ethical turpitude” however discovered that her advice for a one-year stayed suspension wasn’t sufficient.
“We decide {that a} 30-day precise suspension is the suitable self-discipline on this matter,” the evaluation division stated. “Dunn’s misconduct is very regarding given his responsibility to be truthful not simply as an lawyer however as an government with fiduciary obligations over an company that regulates the authorized career.”
The evaluation division refused, nevertheless, to reinstate counts tossed by the listening to choose alleging that Dunn misled the board of trustees when he stated there was no identified opposition to a state invoice that would have allowed state bar civil lawsuits in opposition to individuals who apply regulation and not using a license, in keeping with Courthouse Information Service.
The panel additionally famous elements in mitigation, together with Dunn’s appreciable variety of years as a licensed lawyer with out self-discipline and his “extraordinary good character,” as affirmed by seven witnesses. Dunn was licensed to apply regulation in 1986.
Dunn is represented by Alan Greenberg of Greenberg Gross. He instructed Reuters that the “baseless resolution” will likely be appealed, and the ethics costs have been retaliation for Dunn’s efforts to “rid the bar of its entrenched and dysfunctional bureaucrats.”
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