Case ID: ohio-st-2d_65/html/0130-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n     Holmes, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Dayton Bar Association v. Stinchfield.
    [Cite as Dayton Bar Assn. v. Stinchfield (1981), 65 Ohio St. 2d 130.]
    (D.D. No. 80-19
    Decided March 31, 1981.)
    
      
      Mr. Robert P. Bartlett, Jr., for relator.
    
      Mr. Earl H. Moore, for respondent.
   Per Curiam.

There is ample evidence in the record to support the findings of the board of commissioners, and we concur in their recommendation.

“One of the fundamental tenets of the professional responsibility of a lawyer is that he should maintain a degree of personal and professional integrity that meets the highest standards. The integrity of the profession can be maintained only if the conduct of the individual attorney is above reproach.” Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Stein (1972), 29 Ohio St. 2d 77, 81.

It is hereby ordered that respondent be indefinitely suspended from the practice of law.

Judgment accordingly.

Celebrezze, C. J., W. Brown, P. Brown, Sweeney and Locher, JJ., concur.

Holmes and C. Brown, JJ., dissent.

Holmes, J.,

dissenting. I agree that sanctions must be applied in this disciplinary matter, but I vary with the majority as to the severity or degree. In my view, the facts of this matter present a circumstance concerning which this court should apply one of the most recently promulgated rules of sanction, that being a one-year suspension.

Here, there is no fact pattern involving the moral turpitude of this attorney, nor did he abscond with clients’ funds. His violations, in the main, involved a marked incapacity to appropriately handle his clients’ problems and affairs. Whether such absence of this capability stemmed from a low level of legal expertise, or his health and psychological problems, as argued by the respondent, this writer is unable to completely evaluate. But, in any event, I feel this case does not present the type of situation that we have considered previously wherein we meted out the sanction of indefinite suspension.

Accordingly, I would vote to suspend respondent from the practice of law for the period of one year.

C. Brown, J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion.