Case Title: Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. White

Citation: 1997-Ohio-160

Docket Number: 19970808

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1997-10-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
CINCINNATI BAR ASSOCIATION v. WHITE. 
[Cite as Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. White (1997), 79 Ohio St.3d 491.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Indefinite suspension — Improper solicitation 
of clients — Commingling client funds with personal funds and funds used 
to operate law office. 
(No. 97-808 — Submitted July 7, 1997 — Decided October 1, 1997.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 96-13. 
 
On February 5, 1996, relator, Cincinnati Bar Association, filed a complaint 
charging that respondent, Andrew G. White III of Cincinnati, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0010310, violated several Disciplinary Rules by using an 
attorney referral service that was not sponsored or approved by any bar 
association, and by commingling his clients’ funds with his own.  After respondent 
filed his answer and the parties submitted stipulations and exhibits, a panel of the 
Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court 
(“board”) found the following facts. 
 
Respondent was the sole shareholder, director, and officer of Raw Data 
Corporation (“Raw Data”), whose only purpose was to recommend and promote 
the use of respondent’s services as a lawyer to auto accident victims.  Raw Data 
employed Pat Harris and Karla Horn to inspect auto collision reports filed by 
police agencies and collect the names of persons identified as not being “at fault.”  
Harris and Horn would then telephone those persons, ostensibly to help them to 
find a lawyer, but in fact simply to refer them to respondent.  Harris was paid for 
each referral to respondent; Horn was paid a weekly salary.  Raw Data, which was 
not approved by the Cincinnati Bar Association, did not fit the definition of a legal 
 
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aid office or other legal entity entitled to recommend professional employment.  
Raw Data referred at least thirty clients to respondent. 
 
In addition, respondent agreed with Charles Mayabb, a chiropractor, to refer 
his personal injury clients to Mayabb for treatment in exchange for medical reports 
that Mayabb would provide to respondent for use in settling or litigating claims.  
Respondent further agreed to pay Mayabb’s fees when a personal injury claim was 
resolved for one of his clients.  Respondent also leased office space to Mayabb in 
the building where respondent maintained his own office. 
 
When respondent obtained funds pursuant to settlement agreements for 
several of his clients whom he had solicited through Raw Data, he placed the 
funds in various bank accounts, where they were commingled with his personal 
and law office monies.  He also delivered settlement statements to his clients 
indicating that a portion of their settlements would be withheld by him and paid to 
Mayabb to satisfy their debts for chiropractic services.  The settlement statements 
also purported to constitute mutual releases between respondent and each client 
with respect to all matters relating to respondent’s representation. 
 
However, respondent failed to pay the withheld amounts to Mayabb.  
Instead, respondent converted the monies to his own use by taking a “set-off” 
against amounts that he claimed were owed to him by Mayabb under their lease 
agreement.  Because respondent did not pay Mayabb, Mayabb threatened legal 
action against respondent’s clients.  
 
The panel concluded that respondent’s conduct violated DR 1-102(A)(2) 
(circumventing a Disciplinary Rule through the actions of another), 1-102(A)(3) 
(engaging in conduct involving moral turpitude), 1-102(A)(4) (engaging in 
conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation), 2-103(B) 
(compensating a person to recommend his employment), 2-103(C) (requesting a 
 
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person to recommend or promote his services), 7-101(A)(3) (prejudicing a client 
during the course of the professional relationship), and 9-102(A) and (B)(4) 
(failing to promptly pay to the client upon request funds in the possession of the 
lawyer which the client is entitled to receive).  Despite favorable mitigation 
evidence indicating respondent’s good character, the panel recommended that 
respondent be suspended from the practice of law for two years with the final year 
stayed and that he be placed on probation for one year. 
 
The board adopted the findings and conclusions of the panel, but 
recommended that the respondent be suspended indefinitely from the practice of 
law. 
__________________ 
 
E. Hanlin Bavely and Adam P. Hall, for relator. 
 
John H. Berlew, for respondent. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  DR 2-103(B) provides that “[a] lawyer shall not compensate 
or give anything of value to a person or organization to recommend or secure the 
lawyer’s employment by a client * * *.”  The only organizations excepted from 
this rule are those that can qualify under DR 2-103(D). Such excepted 
organizations are a legal aid society or a public defender office, a military legal 
assistance office, a qualified legal referral service, or a bona-fide organization 
offering a legal services plan that complies with certain conditions. The purpose of 
DR 2-103 is to ensure that individual lawyers do not avoid the advertising and 
solicitation restrictions of the Code of Professional Responsibility. 
 
In this case respondent formed his own corporation whose sole purpose was 
to find potential clients and direct them to respondent.  Respondent paid the 
 
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employees of that corporation, which did not qualify under DR 2-103(D).  Thus, 
respondent clearly violated DR 2-103(B) as found by the board.  In a similar case, 
Disciplinary Counsel v. Heard (1985), 16 Ohio St.3d 18, 16 OBR 369, 475 N.E.2d 
784, where an attorney created an unincorporated association to solicit individuals 
whose property was subject to foreclosure, we imposed a one-year suspension.  
 
In addition, respondent commingled client funds with his own personal 
funds and the funds used to operate his law office.  DR 9-102(A) requires that 
client funds be deposited in one or more identifiable bank accounts in which no 
funds of the lawyer or law firm are deposited.  As the board found, by depositing 
client funds in accounts which contained his own personal and business funds, 
respondent violated DR 9-102(A).  
 
Moreover, respondent, having received settlement funds for clients, was 
required to hold such funds as a fiduciary for those clients.  It is axiomatic that for 
respondent to be able to take a setoff , he must hold the debits and credits in the 
same capacity.  Here, respondent used settlement funds of his clients that he held 
as a fiduciary to set off against his personal claim against Mayabb for rent.  
Respondent was not entitled to set off fiduciary funds against personal debts owed 
to him.  His use of client funds in this manner was tantamount to conversion of his 
clients’ monies. Funds may not be withdrawn from a client’s account for a 
lawyer’s own purposes whether for personal or private business use. Columbus 
Bar Assn. v. Robinson (1979), 59 Ohio St.2d 62, 13 O.O.3d 56, 391 N.E.2d 1019; 
Columbus Bar Assn. v. Thompson (1982), 69 Ohio St.2d 667, 23 O.O.3d 541, 433 
N.E.2d 602. 
 
In view of respondent’s violation both of his duty to the profession to avoid 
improper solicitation and his duty to his clients not to commingle or convert their 
funds, we agree with the board that a more stringent sanction than that 
 
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recommended by the panel is appropriate.  Respondent is hereby indefinitely 
suspended from the practice of law in Ohio.  Costs taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.