o, B6 LISIEDi 

supreme!laudof fIROCIM I 

2014-SC-000645-KB 

KENTUCKY BAR ASSOCIATION MOVANT 

V. IN SUPREME COURT 

KARL NELSON TRUMAN RESPONDENT 

KBA MEMBER NO. 84627 

OPINION AND ORDER 

Respondent, Karl Nelson Truman, was admitted to the practice of law in 

the Commonwealth of Kentucky on March 4, 1993. His bar roster address is 

420 Wall Street, Jeffersonville, Indiana 47130, and his member number is 

84627. Respondent is also licensed to practice law in Indiana. Recently, the 

Indiana Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Respondent for committing 

professional misconduct. Accordingly, this Court must determine whether to 

impose identical reciprocal discipline upon Respondent pursuant to Supreme 

Court Rule ("SCR") 3.435. 

The misconduct at issue in this disciplinary action arises from an 

employment contract Respondent required his new associate attorney to sign 

as a condition of his hiring. The contract included a "Separation Agreement" 

(the "Agreement"), which specified that in the event the employment 

relationship ended, the associate was prohibited from contacting, notifying, or 
soliciting the clients he obtained while working at Respondent's law firm. Only 

Respondent had the luxury of notifying the clients of the associate's departure. 

The Agreement further included a fee arrangement which highly deterred the 

associate from continuing to represent those clients. 

In 2012, the associate resigned from Respondent's law firm, but 

continued practicing law in Indiana. At the time of his resignation, the 

associate was representing more than a dozen clients. Per the Agreement, 

Respondent sent letters to these clients informing them that the associate was 

no longer an attorney with the law firm. The letters stated that Respondent 

would continue working on their cases in order to obtain the best possible 

resolutions. The letter did not explain that the associate could continue 

representing the clients if they so desired, nor did it provide the clients with the 

associate's contact information. The associate, on the other hand, sent notices 

to the clients explaining that he was leaving Respondent's law firm and that 

they could choose to be represented by either him or Respondent. After 

learning that the associate sent letters to the clients in violation of the 

Agreement, Respondent filed suit against the associate in the Clark Circuit 

Court. The parties ultimately mediated the matter and reached a settlement. 

The associate subsequently filed a complaint with the Indiana Supreme 

Court Disciplinary Commission. In reaching a consensual resolution, 

Respondent admitted to the above-referenced conduct. Consequently, the 

Indiana Supreme Court found that Respondent not only failed to sufficiently 

inform his clients of the situation, but also made "an employment agreement 
that restricted the rights of a lawyer to practice after termination of the 

employment relationship." Therefore, Respondent was found guilty of violating 

the following Indiana Professional Conduct Rules ("IPCR"): 1.4(b) ("A lawyer 

shall explain a matter to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to 

make informed decisions regarding the representation") and 5.6(a) ("A lawyer 

shall not participate in offering or making . . . [an employment] agreement that 

restricts the rights of a lawyer to practice after termination of the , relationship, 

except an agreement concerning benefits upon retirement"). Due to 

Respondent's lack of disciplinary history, along with his cooperation with the 

investigation, suspension from the practice of law was not ordered. Instead, 

the Indiana Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Respondent on April 29, 

2014. 

At the request of the Kentucky Bar Association ("KBA"), through the 

Office of Bar Counsel, this Court issued an order requiring Respondent to show 

cause, if any, why identical reciprocal discipline against him should not be 

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imposed. Respondent filed his response to the Show Cause Order on January 

29, 2015. Respondent does not dispute the need for reciprocal discipline, but 

he requests that we lessen the punishment to a private rather than public 

reprimand. 

SCR 3.435(4)(a)-(b) provides that when an attorney is disciplined in 

another jurisdiction for professional misconduct, this Court shall impose 

identical discipline unless one of the following is proven by substantial 

evidence: (1) a lack of jurisdiction in the out-of-state disciplinary proceedings; 

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(2) fraud in the out-of-state disciplinary proceedings; or (3) the misconduct 

warrants substantially different discipline in the Commonwealth. In support of 

Respondent's request for a private reprimand, he maintains that his 

misconduct warrants different discipline in the Commonwealth. 

As the rule suggests, "[t]his Court is not bound by the disciplinary 

penalties imposed . . . in a foreign jurisdiction for the same conduct for which 

[one] is to answer in Kentucky." Kentucky Bar Ass'n v. Shane, 553 S.W.2d 467 

(Ky. 1977). However, SCR 3.435(4)(b) only gives the Court discretion to impose 

a lesser degree of discipline "when and where appropriate." Kentucky Bar 

Ass'n v. Fish, 2 S.W.3d 786, 787 (Ky. 1999). For example, the imposition of 

substantially different discipline may be appropriate in situations where the 

discipline is based on a violation of a foreign jurisdiction rule of professional 

conduct which has no corresponding rule in the Commonwealth. Such is not 

the case here as IPCR 1.4(b) is identical to the corresponding Kentucky rule, 

SCR 3.130-1.4(b), and IPCR 5.6(a) is also identical to its Kentucky counterpart, 

SCR 3.130-5.6(a). 

Different discipline is also warranted when the imposition of identical 

reciprocal discipline would prove to be inconsistent with our case law. For 

example, in Kentucky Bar Ass'n v. Sullivan, 979 S.W.2d 104 (Ky. 1998), we 

concluded that permanent disbarment, which the Ohio Supreme Court 

imposed, was too harsh of a punishment in light of our imposition of a oneyear suspension for almost identical misconduct in another recent Kentucky 

case. Our holding in Sullivan makes clear that a different punishment is 

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warranted when the foreign discipline is significantly inconsistent with 

discipline this Court has imposed in other cases for similar misconduct. This 

is the line of reasoning Respondent uses to support his position. However, 

Respondent has only provided us with one case to demonstrate the 

inconsistencies in imposing a public reprimand. The case Respondent points 

us to is Kentucky Bar A'ssn v. Unnamed Attorney, 205 S.W.3d 204 (Ky. 2006). 

In this case, the Court imposed a private reprimand for the attorney's failure to 

notify his clients of his departure from a law firm. Id. at 210. Unnamed 

Attorney is similar to the case before us in that such conduct constituted a 

failure to keep the client reasonably informed in violation of SCR 3.130-1.4(b). 

Yet, unlike Respondent, the attorney was not disciplined for implementing an 

employment agreement in violation of SCR 3.130-5.6(a). 

Furthermore, we have found ample examples of this Court imposing 

penalties far more severe than a private reprimand for similar misconduct—

that is, a violation of SCR 3.130-1.4(b) coupled with another violation of the 

Rules of Professional Conduct. See, e.g., Kentucky Bar Ass'n v. Whitlock, 275 

S.W.3d 179 (Ky. 2008) (attorney was suspended for thirty days for failing to 

notify her clients that she was leaving her employer law firm, in addition to 

committing other related misconduct); Aulenbach v. Kentucky Bar Ass'n, 151 

S.W.3d 330 (Ky. 2004) (attorney was publicly reprimanded for failing to inform 

the client of the status of her representation). For that reason, we do not 

believe that a public reprimand is inconsistent, let alone significantly 

inconsistent, with discipline this Court has previously imposed for violations of 

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SCR 3.130-1.4(b) and SCR 3.130-5.6(a). Therefore, the KBA's motion to 

impose reciprocal discipline in the form of a public reprimand is granted. 

ACCORDINGLY, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT: 

1. Respondent, Karl Nelson Truman, KBA member number 84627, is 

hereby publicly reprimanded. 

2. In accordance with SCR 3.450, Respondent shall pay all costs 

associated with these disciplinary proceedings against him and for 

which execution may issue from this Court upon finality of this 

Opinion and Order. 

All sitting. All concur. 

ENTERED: April 2, 2015. 

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