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Saturday, October 07, 2006
Ind. Courts - Anderson attorney suspended for a year
"$4,000 mishandled gets attorney a year’s suspension" reads the headline in the Anderson Herald Bulletin. Lee Noble reports:
The Indiana Supreme Court disciplined Anderson attorney Scott L. Webb for misconduct late last week. They found he misappropriated $4,000 given to him by a client.Here is the Supreme Court's Order Finding Misconduct and Imposing Discipline, filed 9/28/06.Beginning Nov. 13, Webb will be suspended from law practice for 12 months.
The family of one of Webb’s former clients, Forest Guffey of Tipton, reported to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission that on Sept. 15, 1998, Webb accepted a $3,000 payment to hire a DNA expert. Webb never hired an expert but told the family otherwise, according to Indiana Supreme Court filings.
The court found he did not deposit that money into his trust account.
Attorneys are required to arrange trust accounts when they handle money that is not intended as payment for their services, according to Donald Lundberg, executive secretary for the Disciplinary Commission.
“Anytime a lawyer handles money that is not the lawyer’s money, the lawyer can’t keep that money in a business account or his own account,” Lundberg said. “It has to be kept in a denominated trust account to be segregated.”
Webb was also accused of telling the prosecutor and his client’s post-conviction attorney that the client could never afford to hire an expert during the time he represented him. The court also found the client paid Webb another $1,000 during the trial. It was never credited to the client’s account, according to Indiana Supreme Court filings. * * *
Lundberg said that a complaint like this isn’t common.
“This is actually, to my recollection, the only case we’ve dealt with where the issue has been the lawyer’s failure to follow through on DNA expert testimony,” Lundberg said. “Another matter for this case was that he took money from a client and didn’t hold it aside for its intended purpose. That’s not as uncommon.”
When lawyers are accused of violations of codes of conduct, it is not considered a criminal offense. Since it’s not criminal, Webb does not face jail time, only suspension from his career and the subsequent loss of thousands of dollars that come with a required year off work.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 7, 2006 06:11 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts