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

Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Stenson, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-995.]

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. 2024-OHIO-995

CINCINNATI BAR ASSOCIATION v. STENSON.

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

may be cited as Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Stenson, Slip Opinion No. 

2024-Ohio-995.]

Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct—Oneyear suspension with six months conditionally stayed.

(No. 2023-0041—Submitted February 6, 2024—Decided March 20, 2024.)

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

Court, No. 2022-047.

__________________

Per Curiam.

{¶ 1} Respondent, David Edmund Stenson, of Dayton, Ohio, Attorney 

Registration No. 0042671, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1989.

{¶ 2} On June 4, 2014, this court imposed a conditionally stayed six-month

suspension on Stenson’s license to practice law for his failure to abide by a client’s 

decisions concerning the objectives of the representation and the means by which 
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those objectives were to be pursued and for his neglect of another client’s legal 

matter. Dayton Bar Assn. v. Stenson, 139 Ohio St.3d 428, 2014-Ohio-2339, 12 

N.E.3d 1182, ¶ 10, 14, 20.

{¶ 3} In a December 2022 complaint, relator, Cincinnati Bar Association, 

alleged that Stenson neglected a single client’s legal matter, failed to reasonably 

communicate with the client, and failed to inform the client that he did not maintain

professional-liability insurance. In January 2023, relator certified to this court that 

Stenson had failed to file an answer to the complaint, and we ordered Stenson to 

show cause why an interim default suspension should not be imposed and the 

corresponding disciplinary order should not be entered against him. After Stenson 

filed a timely response to our show-cause order and a motion for leave to file an 

answer to relator’s complaint, we remanded the matter to the board for further 

proceedings, 169 Ohio St.3d 1453, 2023-Ohio-660, 204 N.E.2d 557.

{¶ 4} In September 2023, relator amended its complaint to allege additional

rule violations and to add a second count alleging similar misconduct regarding

another client. The parties submitted stipulations of fact and misconduct, including

ten exhibits, and the matter proceeded to a hearing before a three-member panel of 

the Board of Professional Conduct. At the conclusion of the evidence and on 

relator’s motion, the panel unanimously dismissed three alleged rule violations. 

The panel issued a report finding that Stenson committed the remaining charged 

misconduct, with the exception of one alleged violation under the second count, 

which it unanimously dismissed. The panel recommended that Stenson be 

suspended from the practice of law for one year with six months stayed. The panel 

also recommended that certain conditions be placed on Stenson’s reinstatement to 

the practice of law and that he be required to serve a one-year period of monitored 

probation.
January Term, 2024

3

{¶ 5} The board adopted the panel’s report and recommendation, and the 

parties have jointly waived objections. After a thorough review of the record, we 

adopt the board’s findings of misconduct and the recommended sanction.

MISCONDUCT

Count I—The Grim Matter

{¶ 6} In May 2020, Shaunice Grim retained Stenson to assist her in 

administering the estate of her deceased mother. She paid Stenson a retainer of 

$1,500 using an electronic-payment application that deposited the payment directly 

into one of two operating accounts maintained by Stenson. At his disciplinary 

hearing, Stenson admitted that he had not maintained a separate record for each 

client for whom he held funds. In addition, Stenson stipulated that he did not 

maintain professional-liability insurance during the time he represented Grim. 

Although he testified that his staff provided Grim with a fee agreement that would 

have included a notice to that effect, neither he nor Grim have been able to locate a 

signed copy of that agreement.

{¶ 7} Stenson filed an application to administer Grim’s mother’s estate in 

the Hamilton County Probate Court on May 27, 2020. Because Stenson did not file 

the appropriate bond with that application, the letters appointing Grim as 

administrator of the estate were not timely issued. Consequently, the probate court 

set an August 2020 hearing “for entry or dismissal” of the case. Ten days after that

hearing, Stenson filed a fiduciary’s bond and Grim was appointed as fiduciary of 

the estate.

{¶ 8} Beginning in December 2020, the probate court issued multiple

delinquency notices and orders—including orders for Stenson and Grim to appear

in court and for extensions of time to file—regarding the overdue estate inventory 

and certificate of fee agreement. Those orders culminated with a body-attachment 

order, served by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, compelling Stenson to 

appear on March 31, 2021, and show cause why he should not be held in contempt 
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of court. Following the issuance of that body-attachment order and before the 

scheduled hearing, Stenson filed a certificate of fee agreement and estate inventory 

in the probate court.

{¶ 9} In the interim, the probate court issued a notice that the estate’s final 

account was overdue. The court later issued a citation ordering Stenson and Grim 

to appear in court on May 12, 2021, regarding the overdue account, and Stenson 

subsequently obtained an extension of time to file the final account on or before 

September 21, 2021. Stenson did not meet that deadline, and he did not comply 

with a subsequent citation ordering him to appear and show cause for his failure to 

file the account. The court continued the filing deadline for the account twice more

before Stenson was permitted to withdraw as counsel in January 2022. Grim 

retained new counsel to complete the administration of the estate, and on May 13, 

2022—nearly two years after the estate was opened—the court approved the final 

account.

{¶ 10} The parties stipulated and the board found by clear and convincing 

evidence that Stenson’s conduct in the Grim matter violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.3

(requiring a lawyer to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing 

a client), 1.4(a)(4) (requiring a lawyer to comply as soon as practicable with a 

client’s reasonable requests for information), 1.4(c) (requiring a lawyer to inform a 

client if the lawyer does not maintain professional-liability insurance and to obtain 

a signed acknowledgment of that notice from the client), and 1.15 (requiring a 

lawyer to hold the property of clients in an interest-bearing client trust account, 

separately from the lawyer’s own property, to maintain a copy of any fee agreement

with each client, and to maintain a record for each client on whose behalf funds are 

held that sets forth the name of the client and the date, amount, and source of all 

funds received on behalf of such client). We adopt these findings of misconduct 

and note that based on the parenthetical descriptions of the rules offered in the 

amended complaint, the parties’ stipulations, and the board’s report, the 
January Term, 2024

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parenthetical description of Prof.Cond.R. 1.15 found by the board shows that the 

violation is a violation of Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a).

Count II—The Russell Matter

{¶ 11} Around late September or early October 2020, Arnesta Russell 

talked to Stenson about injuries she suffered in a fall at a Macy’s department store 

in August 2020. Approximately one week after that discussion, Russell met with 

Stenson at his office to discuss her claim. At that time, Stenson instructed Russell 

to contact him when she completed her course of physical therapy. Stenson did not 

maintain professional-liability insurance during the time he represented Russell and 

could not produce a written notice signed by Russell advising her of that fact.

{¶ 12} In October 2020, Stenson sent a letter to inform Macy’s that he 

represented Russell in relation to her claim against the company. Stenson had 

minimal contact with Russell until she completed her course of physical therapy in 

August 2021. In September 2021, Stenson informed Russell that he had received 

an offer to settle her claim for $2,500, and Russell rejected the offer.

{¶ 13} The following May, Stenson sent Russell a letter asking her to send 

him $335 for the fee to file a lawsuit on her behalf against Macy’s. Russell 

informed Stenson that she would need some time to gather the money. Although 

Russell delivered a $250 check to Stenson in September 2022, Stenson did not 

attempt to file a lawsuit until December 2022 and January 2023. However, his 

online filings were rejected because the credit-card number he entered to pay the 

filing fee was invalid. In his testimony before the hearing panel, Stenson 

acknowledged that it was not until after those filings were rejected that he realized

that the statute of limitations had elapsed on Russell’s claim.

{¶ 14} The parties stipulated and the board found by clear and convincing 

evidence that Stenson’s conduct in the Russell matter violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.3, 

1.4(c), and 1.4(a)(2) (requiring a lawyer to reasonably consult with a client about 

the means by which the client’s objectives are to be accomplished), 1.4(a)(3) 
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(requiring a lawyer to keep a client reasonably informed about the status of a 

matter), and 1.4(a)(4). We adopt these findings of misconduct. And although the 

parties stipulated that Stenson’s conduct also violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.15, the board 

unanimously dismissed the alleged violation of that rule, citing the insufficiency of 

the evidence supporting that alleged violation.

SANCTION

{¶ 15} 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.

{¶ 16} The parties have stipulated that Stenson’s prior discipline and 

multiple offenses are aggravating factors in this case. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(B)(1) 

and (4). The board adopted those stipulations and also noted that Stenson’s 

misconduct in this case is substantially similar to his misconduct in his previous 

disciplinary case. That fact weighs in favor of a more severe sanction because the 

prior sanction failed to serve the desired deterrent effect. See, e.g., Lorain Cty. Bar 

Assn. v. Nelson, 168 Ohio St.3d 596, 2022-Ohio-1288, 200 N.E.3d 1039, ¶ 36. The 

board further found the aggravating factor of harm to the victim because Stenson’s

lack of diligence harmed Russell, whose personal-injury claim is now barred by the 

statute of limitations. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(B)(8). The board also found that 

Stenson refused to acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct. See Gov.Bar 

R. V(13)(B)(7). Specifically, the board noted that Stenson attempted to blame his 

clients for his misconduct by claiming that they had failed to return their signed fee 

agreements to him. In addition, the board found that Stenson’s waiting until the 

morning of his disciplinary hearing to refund the payments made by Grim and 

Russell constituted an aggravating factor. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(B)(9).

{¶ 17} As for mitigating factors, the parties stipulated and the board agreed 

that Stenson did not act with a dishonest or selfish motive. See Gov.Bar R. 
January Term, 2024

7

V(13)(C)(2). The board noted that Stenson offered no evidence of his character or 

reputation. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(5). And while he testified about the stress he 

experienced following the deaths of several family members, Stenson provided no 

evidence that he had been diagnosed with any disorder that would qualify as a 

mitigating factor under Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(7).

{¶ 18} Relator recommended that Stenson be suspended from the practice 

of law for one year with six months stayed on conditions that would require him to

complete six hours of continuing legal education (“CLE”) focused on law-office 

management, serve a period of monitored probation, and participate in counseling 

through the Ohio Lawyers Assistance Program (“OLAP”). Stenson requested a 

fully stayed one-year suspension with the conditions recommended by relator. 

Although neither party provided any caselaw to support its position, the board 

considered three cases that support the imposition of an actual suspension from the 

practice of law—namely, Disciplinary Counsel v. Sabol, 118 Ohio St.3d 65, 2008-

Ohio-1594, 886 N.E.2d 191; Lorain Cty. Bar Assn. v. Weir, 156 Ohio St.3d 566, 

2019-Ohio-2151, 130 N.E.3d 275; and Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Johnson, 127 

Ohio St.3d 97, 2010-Ohio-4832, 936 N.E.2d 938.

{¶ 19} After voluntarily dismissing a client’s personal-injury case with the 

client’s consent, Sabol realized that he had improperly calendared—and missed—

the deadline to refile the action. He immediately told his client to consult another 

lawyer about the potential legal-malpractice claim. Sabol at ¶ 3-4. Sabol had failed 

to inform the client that he did not carry professional-liability insurance during his 

representation. He agreed, however, to settle the client’s malpractice claim and 

paid the agreed amount in full. Id. at ¶ 5. Although Sabol cooperated in the 

disciplinary proceeding and made full restitution to his client by resolving the 

malpractice claim, he had prior discipline—he was publicly reprimanded more than 

ten years earlier for dismissing the personal-injury claims of two clients without 

their consent. Id. at ¶ 9. Citing that disciplinary history, we concluded that Sabol’s 
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misconduct warranted a stricter sanction than a fully stayed suspension and 

suspended him from the practice of law for six months. Id. at ¶ 9-10.

{¶ 20} Weir neglected two client matters and failed to provide competent 

representation to one of his clients. Weir at ¶ 7, 18-19. He also failed to reasonably 

communicate with one of those clients, failed to promptly deliver that client’s 

settlement funds to her, failed to notify her that he did not carry professionalliability insurance, and failed to cooperate in the resulting disciplinary 

investigation. Id. at ¶ 5-9. For aggravating factors, Weir had a prior attorneyregistration suspension and committed multiple offenses. Id. at ¶ 21. Weir also 

failed to make restitution to a client for a financial loss occasioned by his neglect. 

Id. at ¶ 23. As in this case, the sole mitigating factor in Weir was the fact that Weir 

did not act with a dishonest or selfish motive. See id. at ¶ 22. We suspended Weir 

from the practice of law for one year with six months stayed on the conditions that 

he commit no further misconduct, make restitution to his client, complete a CLE 

course on law-office management, and submit to an assessment conducted by 

OLAP and comply with all treatment recommendations arising from that 

assessment. Id. at ¶ 28.

{¶ 21} Johnson neglected two unrelated legal matters by, among other 

things, failing to participate in the discovery process and failing to respond to 

dispositive motions. Johnson, 127 Ohio St.3d 97, 2010-Ohio-4832, 936 N.E.2d 

938, at ¶ 3-4. In one of those matters, Johnson’s failures resulted in a default 

judgment of more than $330,000 being entered against her clients. Id. at ¶ 3. 

Johnson’s failure to prosecute the second matter resulted in the dismissal of the 

client’s complaint without prejudice. Id. at ¶ 4. Johnson’s subsequent failure to 

notify that client of the deadline for refiling the case after her withdrawal as counsel

resulted in the client’s claims being time-barred. Id.

{¶ 22} Aggravating factors in Johnson included a history of prior discipline 

for similar offenses and Johnson’s admitted failure to notify her clients that she did 
January Term, 2024

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not maintain professional-liability insurance. Id. at ¶ 7 and fn. 2. We also found 

as aggravating factors a pattern of misconduct involving multiple offenses. Id. at 

¶ 18. In mitigation, we found that Johnson had not acted with a selfish motive and 

that in contrast to Stenson, she cooperated in the disciplinary process. See id. at 

¶ 8. As in this case, we declined to consider Johnson’s generalized stress arising 

from family and other personal matters as a mitigating factor. See id. at ¶ 8, 11-15. 

We suspended Johnson from the practice of law for one year with six months stayed 

on the conditions that she commit no further misconduct, submit to a mental-health 

assessment conducted by OLAP, enter into an OLAP contract, and comply with all 

of OLAP’s treatment recommendations. Id. at ¶ 23.

{¶ 23} The board acknowledged the similarities between the misconduct at 

issue in Sabol, Weir, and Johnson and the misconduct at issue in this case. It found 

that Stenson’s prior discipline for similar offenses, his refusal to acknowledge his 

wrongdoing, and his attempts to deflect blame to his clients suggested that an actual 

suspension from the practice of law is necessary to protect the public. The board 

therefore recommends that Stenson be suspended from the practice of law for one 

year with six months stayed. In addition, the board recommends that Stenson’s 

reinstatement to the practice of law be conditioned on the submission of proof that 

he has (1) completed a minimum of six hours of CLE focused on law-office

management, in addition to the requirements of Gov.Bar R. X, (2) completed a 

client-trust-account training program offered by disciplinary counsel or a bar 

association that maintains a certified-grievance committee, (3) submitted to an 

assessment conducted by OLAP, and (4) complied with any treatment 

recommendations arising from that assessment. Furthermore, the board 

recommends that upon reinstatement to the practice of law, Stenson be required to 

serve a one-year period of monitored probation focused primarily on law-office 

management and compliance with client-trust-account regulations.
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{¶ 24} In this case, Stenson disregarded a statute of limitations in the 

Russell matter and multiple filing deadlines and court orders in the Grim matter. 

He failed to reasonably communicate with his clients, failed to notify them that he 

did not carry professional-liability insurance, failed to deposit an unearned fee into 

his client trust account, and failed to maintain required records regarding that 

account. Although he stipulated to multiple rule violations, he has failed to 

acknowledge the wrongful nature of his misconduct and has instead attempted to 

blame his clients and his own difficult family circumstances for his failures. In 

light of these facts and their similarity to the facts of Sabol, Weir, and Johnson, we 

agree that a partially stayed one-year suspension with the reinstatement conditions 

recommended by the board is the appropriate sanction for the misconduct at issue 

in this case.

CONCLUSION

{¶ 25} Accordingly, David Edmund Stenson is hereby suspended from the 

practice of law in Ohio for one year with six months stayed on the condition that

he engage in no further misconduct. If Stenson fails to comply with the condition 

of the stay, the stay will be lifted and he will be required to serve the full one-year 

suspension.

{¶ 26} In addition to the requirements of Gov.Bar R. V(24), Stenson’s 

reinstatement to the practice of law shall be conditioned on the submission of proof 

that he has (1) completed a minimum of six hours of CLE focused on law-office 

management, in addition to the requirements of Gov.Bar R. X, (2) completed a 

client-trust-account training program offered by disciplinary counsel or a bar 

association that maintains a certified-grievance committee, (3) submitted to an 

assessment conducted by OLAP, and (4) complied with any treatment 

recommendations arising from that assessment. Further, upon reinstatement to the 

practice of law, Stenson shall serve a one-year period of monitored probation in 

accordance with Gov.Bar R. V(21) to be focused primarily on law-office 
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management and compliance with client-trust-account regulations. Costs are taxed 

to Stenson.

Judgment accordingly.

KENNEDY, C.J., and FISCHER, DEWINE, DONNELLY, STEWART, and DETERS, 

JJ., concur.

BRUNNER, J., not participating.

_________________

Maria C. Palermo, Bar Counsel, for relator.

Bieser, Greer & Landis, L.L.P., and David P. Williamson, for respondent.

_________________