Title: Akron Bar Assn. v. Tucker

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Akron Bar Assn. v. Tucker, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-2631.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2018-OHIO-2631 
AKRON BAR ASSOCIATION v. TUCKER. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Akron Bar Assn. v. Tucker, Slip Opinion No.  
2018-Ohio-2631.] 
Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct—
Conditionally stayed six-month suspension. 
(No. 2017-1739—Submitted January 24, 2018—Decided July 10, 2018.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Professional Conduct of the Supreme 
Court, No. 2017-004. 
_______________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Jon David Tucker, of Tallmadge, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0068817, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1997. 
{¶ 2} In February 2017, relator, Akron Bar Association, charged Tucker 
with violating the Rules of Professional Conduct for misusing his client trust 
account.  The parties entered into stipulations of fact and misconduct and jointly 
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recommended that Tucker serve a conditionally stayed six-month suspension.  
After a hearing, the Board of Professional Conduct issued a report finding that 
Tucker committed some of the charged misconduct and recommending that we 
adopt the parties’ stipulated sanction.  Neither party has objected to the board’s 
recommendation. 
{¶ 3} Based on our review of the record, we adopt the board’s findings and 
recommended sanction. 
Misconduct 
Count I – Client-trust-account violations 
{¶ 4} In 2015, relator investigated and ultimately dismissed a grievance 
filed against Tucker by a former client.  During that investigation, however, relator 
discovered that Tucker had used funds from his client trust account to pay for his 
malpractice insurance.  Relator opened a separate investigation into Tucker’s use 
of his client trust account and later found that he had been using the account for 
personal and business purposes.  Specifically, between January 2013 and 
September 2015, Tucker wrote almost 200 checks from his client trust account to 
pay for a variety of personal and business expenses, including his office rent, 
utilities for his home, personal-income and real-estate taxes, insurance, attorney-
registration fees, judicial-campaign contributions, and loan payments.  In addition, 
on at least 80 occasions, he electronically withdrew funds from the account to cover 
personal expenses. 
{¶ 5} During the disciplinary process, Tucker admitted that he had used his 
client trust account as a “personal bank account and his law office operating 
account” and that rather than withdrawing money from his client trust account when 
he earned it, he allowed his personal funds to accumulate in the account and then 
paid personal and business expenses directly from it.  Consequently, at the end of 
2013, he had a balance of $19,446.78 in his client trust account but only $2,000 
could be attributed to clients, with the remaining funds belonging to him.  Similarly, 
January Term, 2018 
 
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his client trust account had a balance of $26,315.68 at the end of 2014, but only 
$14,250 constituted client funds.  Tucker also admitted that he had failed to 
maintain records to document the identity of funds in the account. 
{¶ 6} Based on this conduct, the parties stipulated and the board found that 
Tucker violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a) (requiring a lawyer to hold property of clients 
in an interest-bearing client trust account, separate from the lawyer’s own property), 
1.15(a)(2) through (5) (requiring a lawyer to maintain certain records regarding 
funds held in a client trust account and certain bank records as well as to perform 
and retain a monthly reconciliation of the account), and 1.15(b) (permitting a 
lawyer to deposit his or her own funds in a client trust account for the sole purpose 
of paying or obtaining a waiver of bank service charges). 
{¶ 7} We agree with the board’s findings of misconduct. 
Count II – Funds belonging to William Congrove 
{¶ 8} At his disciplinary hearing, Tucker testified that William Congrove, a 
friend and former client, gave Tucker a $17,000 check that Congrove had received 
as insurance proceeds for a fire at his home.  Although the check did not relate to 
any legal work that Tucker had completed for Congrove, Tucker deposited the 
funds into his client trust account.  He then withdrew $10,000 in cash from the 
account and gave the money to Congrove, along with $7,000 from his personal 
funds.  Tucker testified that at the time, he was trying to help his friend cash the 
check because Congrove did not have a bank account.  Tucker admitted, however, 
that he should not have deposited the check into his client trust account and that 
during that general time period, he had not maintained the required records for the 
money that he had deposited in the account. 
{¶ 9} Based on this conduct, the board found that Tucker violated 
Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a), 1.15(a)(2), 1.15(a)(3), and 1.15(a)(5).  We accept the board’s 
findings of misconduct. 
 
 
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Sanction 
{¶ 10} When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider 
several relevant factors, including the ethical duties that the lawyer violated, the 
aggravating and mitigating factors listed in Gov.Bar R. V(13), and the sanctions 
imposed in similar cases. 
{¶ 11} As aggravating factors, the board found that Tucker engaged in a 
pattern of misconduct and committed multiple offenses.  See Gov.Bar R. 
V(13)(B)(3) and (4).  In mitigation, the board found that Tucker has no prior 
discipline, he lacked a dishonest or selfish motive, and he demonstrated a 
cooperative attitude toward the disciplinary proceedings.  See Gov.Bar R. 
V(13)(C)(1), (2), and (4).  The board also noted that no clients were harmed as a 
result of Tucker’s misconduct and that since initiation of the disciplinary 
proceedings, he had made changes to his law practice to ensure compliance with 
the rules relating to client trust accounts. 
{¶ 12} To support its recommended sanction, the board reviewed similar 
cases involving attorneys who used their client trust accounts to pay for personal 
and business expenses, including Disciplinary Counsel v. Johnston, 121 Ohio St.3d 
403, 2009-Ohio-1432, 904 N.E.2d 892 (imposing a conditionally stayed one-year 
suspension on an attorney who commingled personal and client funds in his client 
trust account, used the account to pay personal and business expenses, overdrew 
the account on 22 separate occasions, and bounced a check to a client), and 
Disciplinary Counsel v. Dockry, 133 Ohio St.3d 527, 2012-Ohio-5014, 979 N.E.2d 
313 (imposing a conditionally stayed one-year suspension on an attorney who 
commingled personal and client funds in his client trust account, used the account 
to pay personal and business expenses, and borrowed client funds from the account 
to cover a deficiency in his personal checking account). 
{¶ 13} Of the precedents cited by the board, we find Disciplinary Counsel 
v. Fletcher, 122 Ohio St.3d 390, 2009-Ohio-3480, 911 N.E.2d 897, most 
January Term, 2018 
 
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instructive.  In that case, an attorney wrote at least 150 client-trust-account checks 
to cover personal and business expenses, wrote 101 client-trust-account checks to 
himself without first verifying the amount in the account that belonged to him, and 
failed to maintain required records to document the identity of funds in the account.  
In addition, he impermissibly loaned money to a client and cashed checks for the 
client’s small business by depositing them into his client trust account.  In 
mitigation, the attorney had no prior discipline, lacked a dishonest or selfish motive, 
and fully cooperated in the disciplinary process.  We noted that although the 
attorney commingled personal and client funds, no one had accused him of 
misappropriation and no clients were harmed as a result of his misconduct.  We 
also noted that the attorney had acknowledged his deficiencies and had agreed to 
accept help in properly managing his client trust account.  We suspended the 
attorney for six months but stayed the suspension on conditions, including 
monitored probation. 
{¶ 14} Tucker’s misconduct is comparable to the ethical infractions in 
Fletcher, and, in mitigation, Tucker also has no prior discipline, lacked a dishonest 
or selfish motive, and cooperated in the disciplinary process.  In addition, the board 
found that Tucker’s actions did not harm any clients and that he has instituted 
corrective measures to ensure proper use of his client trust account.  In accord with 
Fletcher, we conclude that a conditionally stayed six-month suspension is 
appropriate in this case. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 15} For the reasons explained above, Jon David Tucker is suspended 
from the practice of law for six months, with the entire suspension stayed on the 
conditions that he (1) complete a six-month period of monitored probation in 
accordance with Gov.Bar R. V(21), (2) complete six hours of continuing legal 
education relating to law-office management, including at least two hours relating 
to trust-account management, in addition to the requirements of Gov.Bar R. X 
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within six months of this court’s disciplinary order, and (3) engage in no further 
misconduct.  If Tucker fails to comply with a condition of the stay, the stay will be 
lifted and he will serve the full six-month suspension.  Costs are taxed to Tucker. 
Judgment accordingly. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, and 
DEWINE, JJ., concur. 
DEGENARO, J., not participating. 
_________________ 
Nathan A. Ray; and Wayne M. Rice, Bar Counsel, for relator. 
Jon David Tucker, pro se. 
_________________