Case Title: Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Fox

Citation: 2004-Ohio-300

Docket Number: 20031531

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2004-02-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Fox, 101 Ohio St.3d 154, 2004-Ohio-300.] 
 
 
CLEVELAND BAR ASSOCIATION v. FOX. 
[Cite as Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Fox, 101 Ohio St.3d 154, 2004-Ohio-300.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Eighteen-month suspension with twelve 
months of suspension stayed on conditions — Failing to deposit client 
funds in an identifiable bank account — Failing to maintain complete 
records of and account for client’s funds — Failing to return client’s 
property upon request. 
(No. 2003-1531 — Submitted October 20, 2003 — Decided February 11, 2004.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 02-57. 
_______________ 
 
PER CURIAM. 
{¶1} 
Respondent, John P. Fox of Lakewood, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0031742, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1970.  On August 12, 
2002, relator, Cleveland Bar Association, filed a complaint charging respondent 
with professional misconduct.  A panel of the Board of Commissioners on 
Grievances and Discipline considered the cause on the parties’ comprehensive 
stipulations, including a proposed sanction for agreed-upon misconduct. 
{¶2} 
Adopting the parties’ stipulations of fact and misconduct, the panel 
found that in June 1995, respondent settled a case on a client’s behalf for $93,000.  
The settlement proceeds were paid in two installments: $25,000 to respondent and 
a co-counsel for attorney fees and $68,000 to the client.  Respondent retained the 
$68,000, holding this sum in trust for the client pursuant to a purported trust 
agreement that named him as trustee.  Neither an executed original nor a copy of 
this trust agreement appears in the record, however, and the parties have 
possession of only unexecuted copies. 
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{¶3} 
The parties stipulated and the panel found that respondent did not 
place the client’s $68,000 in any kind of a trust account, nor did he identify the 
funds in any other manner as being held in trust for the client’s benefit.  
Notwithstanding this, respondent expended $32,847.60 of the trust proceeds for 
his client’s benefit prior to her death in January 1998. 
{¶4} 
In July 1999, respondent received a formal request to produce the 
client’s will.  He did not reply.  He also did not respond to inquiries concerning 
the entrusted $68,000.  Respondent’s failure to account for this money or to turn 
over trust assets caused the executor of the client’s estate to file a complaint 
against him in probate court for concealment.  In June 2000, respondent paid the 
balance of the unused trust money, $35,142.40, to the executor, and they 
eventually settled the concealment-of-assets suit, with the executor dismissing it 
in November 2001.  Respondent has never specifically accounted for the trust 
funds that his client apparently left in his custody for the nearly five years prior to 
her death. 
{¶5} 
The panel found, again as stipulated, that respondent had violated 
DR 9-102(A) (failing to deposit client funds in an identifiable bank account), 
(B)(3) (failing to maintain complete records of and account for client’s funds), 
and (B)(4) (failing to return client’s property upon request). 
{¶6} 
In recommending a sanction for this misconduct, the panel 
considered the aggravating and mitigating factors stipulated by the parties and 
offered in accordance with Section 10 of the Rules and Regulations Governing 
Procedure on Complaints and Hearings Before the Board of Commissioners on 
Grievances and Discipline.  The panel found no aggravating factors.  As 
mitigating, the panel found that respondent had practiced law for 33 years with no 
previous history of professional discipline.  The panel also considered mitigating 
nearly 30 letters in which respondent’s many professional colleagues uniformly 
January Term, 2004 
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championed his competence, integrity, and dedication to his clients, his family, 
his community, his church, and the legal profession. 
{¶7} 
The panel recommended the sanction jointly proposed by the 
parties—that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for 18 months, 
with 12 months of this period stayed on the conditions that (1) respondent pay 
$16,071.35 to the plaintiffs in the concealment-of-assets case, Cuyahoga County 
Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, case No. 2000ADV31867, with 
$12,000 representing the attorney fees plaintiffs incurred and $4,071.35 
representing their related litigation expenses, (2) respondent “complete and certify 
his completion of Continuing Legal Education (‘CLE’) credits pertaining to law 
office management,” and (3) after he complies with these conditions and if his 
license is restored, his law practice be monitored, particularly as to his accounting 
and cash-management practices, by a monitor appointed by relator.  The board 
adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and its recommendation. 
{¶8} 
We agree that respondent violated DR 9-102(A) and (B)(3) and (4) 
as found by the board.  We also agree that an 18-month suspension, with 12 
months of the sanction period stayed on the recommended conditions, is 
appropriate.  In a similar case, an attorney applied portions of entrusted funds for 
legitimate client expenses, yet failed to maintain complete records or to account 
for approximately $12,000, and we suspended her license for two years but 
conditionally stayed the second year.  See Disciplinary Counsel v. McCully, 97 
Ohio St.3d 486, 2002-Ohio-6724, 780 N.E.2d 574.  As in McCully, we also have 
no clear-and-convincing evidence of theft here.  Moreover, respondent has repaid 
the unaccounted-for funds and agreed to make complete restitution to the executor 
of his client’s estate.  He has also shown a considerable amount of strong 
character evidence. 
{¶9} 
Accordingly, we order that respondent be suspended from the 
practice of law in Ohio for 18 months; however, 12 months of this suspension are 
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stayed on conditions.  With the additional specification of how many CLE hours 
in office management respondent must pursue, the conditions are (1) respondent 
shall pay $16,071.35 to the plaintiffs in the concealment-of-assets case, Cuyahoga 
County Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, case No. 2000ADV31867, 
with $12,000 representing the attorney fees plaintiffs incurred and $4,071.35 
representing their related litigation expenses, (2) respondent shall complete and 
certify his completion of ten CLE hours in law office management, and (3) after 
he complies with these conditions and if his license is restored, respondent’s law 
practice, particularly his accounting and cash management practices, shall be 
subject to review for one year by a monitor appointed by relator.  Costs are taxed 
to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, JJ., concur. 
_________________ 
 
Shapero, McGinness & Associates and Michael I. Shapero; Lustig, Evans 
& Lucas Co., L.P.A., and Robert M. Lustig, for relator. 
 
Koblentz & Koblentz, Richard S. Koblentz and Craig J. Morice, for 
respondent.