[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 

Disciplinary Counsel v. Davis, Slip Opinion No. 2019-Ohio-1314.] 

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. 2019-OHIO-1314

DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. DAVIS.

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 

may be cited as Disciplinary Counsel v. Davis, Slip Opinion No. 

2019-Ohio-1314.] 

Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the 

former Code of Professional Responsibility—Public reprimand. 

(No. 2018-1761—Submitted January 30, 2019—Decided April 10, 2019.) 

ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Professional Conduct of the Supreme 

Court, No. 2018-028. 

_______________________ 

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Respondent, David William Davis, of Bridgeport, Ohio, Attorney 

Registration No. 019639, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1973. 

Davis served for 32 years as a part-time judge of the Belmont County Court and for 

30 years as a bankruptcy trustee. 
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{¶ 2} In 2017, Davis’s longtime bookkeeper was convicted of stealing 

funds from Davis’s client trust account. Relator, disciplinary counsel, thereafter 

charged Davis with failing to perform the required monthly reconciliations of his 

client trust account and failing to adequately supervise his staff. Based on the 

parties’ stipulations and Davis’s hearing testimony, a panel of the Board of 

Professional Conduct found that he had engaged in the charged misconduct and 

recommended that he be publicly reprimanded. The board issued a report adopting 

the panel’s findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommended sanction. The 

parties have jointly waived objections and requested that we adopt the board’s 

report. 

{¶ 3} Based on our review of the record, we adopt the board’s findings of 

misconduct and agree that a public reprimand is the appropriate sanction in this 

case. 

Misconduct 

{¶ 4} In 1980, Davis’s then law firm hired Jayne Sliva as a legal secretary. 

In 2001, Davis established a solo law practice and retained Sliva to serve as his 

secretary, bookkeeper, and office manager. In 2003, Sliva began stealing from 

Davis. Specifically, Davis practiced bankruptcy law and received significant 

amounts of cash payments from clients, either for legal fees or court costs. 

Although Sliva recorded those payments on a client ledger, she regularly converted 

all or a portion of the funds for her own use, rather than depositing the money into 

Davis’s client trust account or his law firm’s general operating account. In other 

words, Sliva skimmed money from client cash payments that she should have 

deposited into one of Davis’s bank accounts. 

{¶ 5} In 2012, Sliva left Davis’s office to pursue other employment, and in 

2014, he decided to merge his law practice with another attorney’s. In preparing to 

close his solo practice, Davis audited his books and discovered that money was 

missing from both his client trust account and his operating account. In January 
January Term, 2019 

3

2015, he filed a police report, which led to the Ohio Attorney General’s office 

conducting a forensic audit of the accounts. The attorney general determined that 

between 2003 and 2012, Sliva had embezzled $185,365.75 from Davis: $125,948 

that should have been deposited into his operating account and $59,417.75 that 

should have been deposited into his client trust account. 

{¶ 6} In 2017, Sliva pleaded guilty to aggravated theft by deception and 

tampering with records. The Belmont County Court of Common Pleas sentenced 

her to 36 months of incarceration and ordered her to make restitution to Davis for 

the amount stolen. In September 2017, Sliva paid Davis an initial $100,000. He 

also received $10,000 from a bonding company. 

{¶ 7} During his disciplinary proceedings, Davis admitted that when Sliva 

worked for him, he regularly reviewed the bank statements for his client trust 

account but never conducted a monthly reconciliation of the account by comparing 

the client ledgers with the client-trust-account registers and bank statements. 

Accordingly, the parties stipulated and the board found that he violated 

Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a)(5) (requiring a lawyer to perform and retain a monthly 

reconciliation of the records of funds being held on a client’s behalf) and former 

DR 9-102(B)(3) (requiring a lawyer to maintain complete records of all client 

property coming into the lawyer’s possession and render appropriate accounts to 

each client). In addition, the parties stipulated and the board found that Davis failed 

to adequately supervise Sliva in violation of Prof.Cond.R. 5.3(b) (requiring a 

lawyer to make reasonable efforts to ensure that a nonlawyer employee’s conduct 

is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer) and former DR 1-

102(A)(6) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct that adversely reflects 

on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law).1

 

1. Because Davis’s misconduct occurred both prior to and after February 1, 2007, the effective date 

of the Rules of Professional Conduct, relator charged Davis under the former Code of Professional 

Responsibility and the counterpart provisions of the current Rules of Professional Conduct. 
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{¶ 8} We agree with the board’s findings of misconduct. 

Sanction

{¶ 9} When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we consider all 

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. 

{¶ 10} The board found no aggravating factors in this case but several 

mitigating factors. Specifically, Davis has a clean disciplinary record and lacked a 

dishonest or selfish motive. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(1) and (2). He made a 

timely, good-faith effort to rectify the consequences of his misconduct by 

depositing $35,677.46 of his own money into his client trust account to make up 

for the amount of unearned client funds still missing from the account. See Gov.Bar 

R. V(13)(C)(3). He made full and free disclosures to relator and, as the board 

found, “displayed an extremely cooperative attitude” toward the disciplinary 

proceedings. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(4). He also provided 25 letters attesting to 

his good character and reputation in the community, and he suffered other penalties 

for his misconduct—namely, he used personal funds to balance his trust account. 

See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(5) and (6). Finally, the board noted that none of Davis’s 

clients lost money as a result of his misconduct and that Davis and his current law 

partner have implemented procedures to prevent theft from occurring in the future. 

{¶ 11} In proposing a sanction, the board reviewed three cases in which 

attorneys had failed to adequately supervise their nonlawyer employees. In 

Disciplinary Counsel v. Ball, 67 Ohio St.3d 401, 404, 618 N.E.2d 159 (1993), an 

attorney “relinquished significant aspects of his probate practice” to his legal 

 

However, the board concluded—and relator agreed—that Davis’s continuing course of conduct 

from 2003 to 2012 constituted only two professional-conduct-rule violations as opposed to four 

separate violations. See Disciplinary Counsel v. Crosby, 124 Ohio St.3d 226, 2009-Ohio-6763, 921 

N.E.2d 225, ¶ 2, fn.1. 
January Term, 2019 

5

secretary, resulting in the attorney’s neglect of ten separate probate matters due to 

the secretary’s failure to timely file documents in those cases. In addition, the 

secretary misappropriated more than $200,000 from estate and guardianship 

accounts for which Ball was the attorney or fiduciary. We concluded that the 

attorney’s “total failure to supervise any work done by his nonlawyer employee” 

required a six-month suspension from the practice of law. Id.

{¶ 12} In Mahoning Cty. Bar Assn. v. Lavelle, 107 Ohio St.3d 92, 2005-

Ohio-5976, 836 N.E.2d 1214, we found that an attorney’s failure to supervise his 

staff created an office environment allowing employees to alter and falsely notarize 

documents. Specifically, the attorney “chose to remain oblivious to the improper 

actions of the persons he hired, thereby violating the trust that his clients and others 

placed in him and his office staff.” Id. at ¶ 29. In addition, the attorney neglected 

a client’s domestic-relations case and failed to cooperate in the ensuing disciplinary 

investigation. Based on this misconduct, we suspended the attorney for 18 months, 

with 12 months conditionally stayed. 

{¶ 13} Finally, in Disciplinary Counsel v. Maley, 119 Ohio St.3d 217, 2008-

Ohio-3923, 893 N.E.2d 180, an attorney gave his secretary broad authority to use 

the office credit card and work directly with clients. Consequently, the employee 

prepared and filed pleadings without the attorney’s knowledge, and she used the 

office credit card for personal purchases. We found that the attorney “either knew 

or should have known that she was taking money from clients and performing legal 

work for them,” id. at ¶ 14, and that “his lack of responsibility facilitated her 

unauthorized practice of law,” id. at ¶ 22. In addition, the attorney failed to 

maintain a client trust account and therefore regularly commingled client and 

business funds. We suspended him for 18 months, with six months conditionally 

stayed. 

{¶ 14} The facts here are much less egregious than those in Ball, Lavelle, 

and Maley. As the board found, clients in those cases were detrimentally affected 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO

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by their attorney’s actions but Davis’s “misplaced trust in his former employee 

resulted in no harm to clients but significant harm to him.” Further, Ball, Lavelle, 

and Maley involved professional misconduct more varied than Davis’s, which was 

essentially limited to his failure to compare his client ledger sheets with monthly 

bank statements. 

{¶ 15} The board also reviewed cases from outside Ohio, including In re 

Ponder, 375 S.C. 525, 654 S.E.2d 533 (2007). In that matter, an attorney’s assistant 

embezzled over $238,000 from the attorney’s trust account by forging the 

attorney’s name to various checks drawn on the account over a two-year period. 

The attorney had failed to review canceled checks from his trust account and to 

perform monthly reconciliations of bank statements with trust-account records. 

Like Davis, the attorney deposited his own funds into the trust account to cover the 

shortages caused by his employee’s theft, and the attorney similarly had an 

otherwise clean disciplinary record and fully cooperated in the disciplinary 

investigation. The Supreme Court of South Carolina publicly reprimanded him for 

the misconduct. 

{¶ 16} We agree with the board that the facts here are more comparable to 

those in Ponder than to those in Ball, Lavelle, and Maley and that considering 

Davis’s significant mitigating evidence, a public reprimand is the appropriate 

sanction in this case. We reiterate that although “[d]elegation of work to 

nonlawyers is essential to the efficient operation of any law office,” “delegation of 

duties cannot be tantamount to the relinquishment of responsibility by the lawyer” 

and “[s]upervision is critical in order that the interests of clients are effectively 

safeguarded.” Ball, 67 Ohio St.3d at 404, 618 N.E.2d 159. 

Conclusion 

{¶ 17} David William Davis is hereby publicly reprimanded for violating 

Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a)(5) and 5.3(b). Costs are taxed to Davis. 

Judgment accordingly. 
January Term, 2019 

7

O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY,

and STEWART, JJ., concur. 

_________________ 

Scott J. Drexel, Disciplinary Counsel, and Stacey Solochek Beckman, 

Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 

Charles J. Kettlewell, for respondent. 

_________________