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

Trumbull Cty. Bar Assn. v. Dull, Slip Opinion No. 2017-Ohio-8774.] 

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. 2017-OHIO-8774

TRUMBULL COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION v. DULL. 

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

may be cited as Trumbull Cty. Bar Assn. v. Dull, Slip Opinion No. 

2017-Ohio-8774.] 

Attorneys—Misconduct—Violations of professional-conduct rules, including 

misappropriating client funds—Two-year suspension, with second year 

stayed on conditions. 

(No. 2017-0490—Submitted June 7, 2017—Decided December 5, 2017.) 

ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Professional Conduct of the 

Supreme Court, No. 2016-027. 

_______________________ 

Per Curiam. 

{¶ 1} Respondent, Joseph Terrence Dull, of Niles, Ohio, Attorney 

Registration No. 0009288, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1976. In 

July 2016, relator, Trumbull County Bar Association, charged him with violating 

the professional-conduct rules for, among other things, misappropriating funds that 
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a client had instructed him to invest. Dull stipulated to many of the allegations 

against him, and after a hearing, the Board of Professional Conduct issued a report 

finding that he had engaged in the charged misconduct and recommending that we 

suspend him for one year, with the final six months stayed on conditions. Neither 

party has objected to the board’s report and recommendation. 

{¶ 2} Although we agree with the board’s misconduct findings, we hold that 

Dull’s actions require a more severe sanction. For the reasons explained below, we 

suspend him for two years, with the second year stayed on the board’s 

recommended conditions. 

Misconduct 

{¶ 3} At the time of his disciplinary hearing, Dull had served for 30 years 

as the Niles law director. He planned to retire in February 2017. While serving as 

the law director, he also had a solo practice, which he intended to continue after 

retiring from public employment. 

{¶ 4} In 1996, as part of his private practice, Dull created an investment 

trust in which his client Joseph S. Scaglione was the grantor and Dull was the 

trustee. Almost 15 years later, in 2011, Scaglione gave Dull two checks totaling 

$45,000 and instructed him to invest the money in a Vanguard fund. Dull, however, 

failed to do so and instead deposited both checks into his client trust account. 

Because Scaglione received monthly account statements from the investment fund, 

he discovered that Dull had not invested his money. Due to fluctuating market 

conditions, Scaglione later instructed Dull to hold off investing the money until 

conditions improved. 

{¶ 5} In 2012, Scaglione asked Dull, as trustee of the investment trust, for 

$8,000, which Dull paid by check from his client trust account. About three years 

later, in 2015, Scaglione requested $27,000 to purchase a new car. But Dull 

informed Scaglione that he no longer had any of the money because he had 
January Term, 2017 

3

withdrawn for his own personal use the remaining $37,000 that he had been holding 

as trustee of the investment trust. 

{¶ 6} Scaglione thereafter terminated Dull as trustee and filed a grievance 

with relator. During the disciplinary proceedings, Dull testified that he had moved 

his office in 2010 and that overhead for the new space was more than he had 

anticipated. He admitted that from 2011 to January 2013, he periodically withdrew 

Scaglione’s money from his client trust account to cover his expenses, hoping that 

he would make enough money to refund the account before Scaglione requested 

more funds from the trust. Dull also admitted that he had failed to properly maintain 

client records for his trust account and that he had failed to disclose to Scaglione 

and other clients that he lacked malpractice insurance. With assistance from family 

members, Dull refunded $37,000 to Scaglione and paid him an additional $11,550, 

which represented lost interest and opportunity resulting from Dull’s failure to 

initially invest the money. 

{¶ 7} Based on this conduct, the board found that Dull had violated 

Prof.Cond.R. 1.4(c) (requiring a lawyer to inform the client if the lawyer does not 

maintain professional-liability insurance and obtain a signed acknowledgment of 

that notice from the client), 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) (requiring a lawyer to maintain a record for each client on whose behalf 

funds are held), and 8.4(c) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct 

involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). 

{¶ 8} We adopt the board’s findings of misconduct. 

Sanction 

{¶ 9} 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. 
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Aggravating and mitigating factors

{¶ 10} As aggravating factors, the board found that Dull had had a dishonest 

or selfish motive, he had engaged in a pattern of misconduct, and his misconduct 

had been directed at a vulnerable victim, Scaglione, who the board described as a 

trusting and longtime friend of Dull’s. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(B)(2), (3), and (8). 

In mitigation, the board found that Dull had no prior disciplinary record in his 40-

year legal career, he had made full restitution to Scaglione, he had made full and 

free disclosures to the board and had had a cooperative attitude toward the 

disciplinary proceedings, and he had submitted evidence of good character and 

reputation. See Gov.Bar R. V(13)(C)(1), (3), (4), and (5). The board also noted 

that at his disciplinary hearing, he was “absolutely willing to acknowledge the 

wrongful nature of his conduct.” 

Applicable precedent

{¶ 11} “The presumptive sanction for misappropriation of client funds is 

disbarment.” Disciplinary Counsel v. Burchinal, 133 Ohio St.3d 38, 2012-Ohio3882, 975 N.E.2d 960, ¶ 17. But, as recognized by the board, because this sanction 

“may be tempered with sufficient evidence of mitigating or extenuating 

circumstances,” Disciplinary Counsel v. Edwards, 134 Ohio St.3d 271, 2012-Ohio5643, 981 N.E.2d 857, ¶ 18, our sanctions in misappropriation cases have ranged 

from disbarment to fully stayed term suspensions. 

{¶ 12} After surveying numerous misappropriation cases, the board 

concluded that neither disbarment nor an indefinite suspension was warranted here. 

Cases with those sanctions, the board noted, generally involved more serious 

misconduct, more violations of the professional-conduct rules, an attorney with a 

prior disciplinary record, a failure to make restitution or failure to cooperate in the 

disciplinary process, or circumstances in which the aggravating factors clearly 

outweighed the mitigating factors. 
January Term, 2017 

5

{¶ 13} In recommending a sanction, the board relied on three 

misappropriation cases that it found to be “most comparable” to the present case: 

Disciplinary Counsel v. Gorby, 142 Ohio St.3d 35, 2015-Ohio-476, 27 N.E.3d 510; 

Disciplinary Counsel v. Dockry, 133 Ohio St.3d 527, 2012-Ohio-5014, 979 N.E.2d 

313; and Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Hauck, 129 Ohio St.3d 209, 2011-Ohio-3281, 951 

N.E.2d 83. In Gorby and Dockry, we sanctioned the attorneys with conditionally 

stayed one-year suspensions, and in Hauck, we suspended the attorney for one year, 

with the final six months stayed on conditions. The board concluded that an actual 

suspension was necessary here to protect the public because it would give Dull time 

to become more educated about the proper use of his client trust account. 

Therefore, the board recommended a one-year suspension with six months 

conditionally stayed. 

{¶ 14} Although we agree with the board that neither disbarment nor an 

indefinite suspension is warranted, we hold that a longer term suspension is 

necessary. Dull’s misconduct was more egregious than the misconduct in Gorby, 

Dockry, or Hauck. For example, in Gorby, an attorney misappropriated 

approximately $5,500 from her sister and brother-in-law, who she represented at 

no charge in a foreclosure action. The clients gave her their money with 

instructions to use the funds only for payment of their mortgage. But after 

depositing the money into her business checking account, she began using some of 

the money to pay her own personal and business expenses. The board concluded, 

however, that she posed little, if any, threat to the public because her misconduct 

“arose in the context of her very contentious family relationship.” Id. at ¶ 15. Based 

on these facts, we found that a fully stayed one-year suspension was sufficient to 

protect the public. Id. at ¶ 27. 

{¶ 15} In contrast, Dull misappropriated significantly more money, 

$37,000, over a multiyear period—seemingly because he needed it and the money 

was available to him. Thus, we do not have the same level of assurance that he will 
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not engage in future misconduct. Indeed, at his disciplinary hearing, he testified 

that he had not yet asked his current clients to sign a notice acknowledging that they 

were aware that he lacked malpractice insurance, despite the fact that relator had 

charged him with that misconduct seven months before the hearing date. Similarly, 

he admitted that had not yet commenced retaining the client-trust-account records 

that Prof.Cond.R. 1.15(a) requires lawyers to maintain. 

{¶ 16} Under these circumstances, a two-year suspension with the second 

year conditionally stayed is more appropriate. This sanction takes into account the 

significant mitigating factors in this case, gives Dull the necessary time to become 

more knowledgeable about the professional-conduct rules relevant to private 

practice, and reinforces our long-held position that the continuing public 

confidence in the judicial system and the bar requires that strict discipline be 

imposed in misappropriation cases. Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Belock, 82 Ohio St.3d 

98, 100, 694 N.E.2d 897 (1998). This sanction is also consistent with other cases 

involving attorneys who engaged in isolated incidents of misappropriation in 

otherwise unblemished legal careers. See, e.g., Disciplinary Counsel v. Claflin, 107 

Ohio St.3d 31, 2005-Ohio-5827, 836 N.E.2d 564 (imposing a two-year suspension, 

with the second year conditionally stayed, on an attorney who misappropriated a 

single client’s settlement proceeds and lied about it to a grievance investigator but 

had an otherwise unblemished legal career); Disciplinary Counsel v. Gildee, 134 

Ohio St.3d 374, 2012-Ohio-5641, 982 N.E.2d 704, ¶ 16 (imposing a two-year 

suspension, with the second year conditionally stayed, on an attorney who 

misappropriated funds and engaged in other misconduct in a single client’s case but 

had an “otherwise untarnished legal career”). 

Conclusion 

{¶ 17} For the reasons explained above, Joseph Terrence Dull is suspended 

from the practice of law for two years, with the second year stayed on the conditions 

that he (1) complete a continuing-legal-education course regarding compliance 
January Term, 2017 

7

with the rules regulating client trust accounts within six months of this order, in 

addition to the requirements of Gov.Bar R. X, and (2) commit no further 

misconduct. If Dull fails to comply with the conditions of the stay, the stay will be 

lifted and he will serve the full two-year suspension. Costs are taxed to Dull. 

Judgment accordingly. 

O’CONNOR, C.J., and O’DONNELL, KENNEDY, FRENCH, O’NEILL, FISCHER,

and DEWINE, JJ., concur. 

_________________ 

Flevares Law Firm, L.L.C., and William M. Flevares; and Randil J. Rudloff, 

Bar Counsel, for relator. 

Comstock, Springer & Wilson Co., L.P.A., and Thomas J. Wilson, for 

respondent. 

_________________