Opinion ID: 1294866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: client one

Text: ¶ 8. Counts 1-3 alleged three separate violations of SCR 20:8.4(c) [3] (prohibiting dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation). ¶ 9. Count 4 alleged violations of former SCR 20:1.15(b) [4] (a lawyer shall promptly notify a client and interested third parties in writing after receiving funds from the client and shall promptly deliver on request funds in which they have an interest and/or render a full accounting), and SCR 20:1.4(a) [5] (a lawyer shall keep a client reasonably informed about the status of a matter and promptly comply with reasonable requests for information). ¶ 10. Counts 12 and 13 alleged violations of SCR 20:8.4(c) and Count 14 alleged a violation of SCR 20:8.4(f) [6] and SCR 22.03(6) [7] (jointly prohibit willful failure to provide OLR with information during the course of an investigation). ¶ 11. These counts involve Attorney Jacobson's representation of the client in a criminal failure to pay child support matter and a related family court matter. The client's wife initially gave Attorney Jacobson a non-refundable retainer of $1000 in October 1999. The client himself gave Attorney Jacobson $4000 in March 2000. Attorney Jacobson wrote three checks to himself from his trust account in the amounts of $2000/$1000/$2000 on March 17, 2000, April 25, 2000, and May 2, 2000, respectively. Two months after the last check, Attorney Jacobson wrote a check from his business account to this client's trust account for $1000. ¶ 12. Approximately one year later Attorney Jacobson wrote a bill for all of the services rendered to the client which totaled $9560 less payment received of $5000. The problem arose when, prior to having provided the client with his bill, the client's wife asked Attorney Jacobson to apply the funds in her husband's trust account (which she apparently thought were either $4000 or $5000) to his bail as he had recently been incarcerated. Attorney Jacobson informed her there was nothing in the trust account. ¶ 13. The client contended that the $4000 he gave Attorney Jacobson was supposed to be held by him in escrow as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the district attorney to reduce the pending charges against him ( i.e., to show his good faith and intent to pay his child support arrearage). However, Attorney Jacobson disputed this, claiming that no amount of money would have sufficed to reduce the charges and it was his understanding the entire $5000 was to be used as needed to pay his attorney's fees. ¶ 14. The referee concluded that the OLR had presented insufficient facts to sustain a finding of misconduct on Counts 1-3. She was particularly influenced by the fact that the client was not able to explain how, if indeed the payments were to be held in escrow, he still intended to pay Attorney Jacobson's fees given the substantial legal work Attorney Jacobson had done for him. The referee stated: This is not a case where the attorney is accused of falsifying his time records, but rather seems to have arisen out of a misunderstanding about the purpose and application of funds paid by the client. . . . Jacobson's failure to explain to his client that he would be applying his fees to the amount in the trust fund certainly is not commendable. Nonetheless his actions do not rise to the level of conversion of those funds since he earned his fees. Mr. Jacobson's admitted practice of not sending regular bills to his clients, including [this client] nor keeping him reasonably informed about the status of the balance in his account gave rise to the problems now confronting Mr. Jacobson. ¶ 15. However, the referee found that misconduct had occurred with respect to Count 4 which arose out of Attorney Jacobson's failure to provide the client with requested information about the status of his trust account. The client testified that when he asked Attorney Jacobson to apply part of the funds to his bail, Attorney Jacobson said, no, he couldn't do that and when his wife later called Attorney Jacobson on several occasions to inquire about the funds, Attorney Jacobson failed to provide an accounting. He testified that Attorney Jacobson told her not to worry about it and also implied that it was not her standing to request billing information relating to her husband. The referee believed the version of this dispute as related by the client and his wife. ¶ 16. The referee also concluded that misconduct occurred with respect to Count 12 because Attorney Jacobson never sent a bill to his client, contrary to what he represented to the OLR, and did not prepare a bill until after the OLR began its investigation. Thus the referee concluded that the OLR had adequately proved that Attorney Jacobson misrepresented what he told his client about moving the client's funds out of the trust account to pay his fees. ¶ 17. Finally, the referee found no misconduct relating to Counts 13 and 14. She concluded there was no evidence Attorney Jacobson misrepresented to the OLR that the $4000 payment made by his client was for attorney's fees, given that he reasonably believed that the funds were to be legitimately used for that purpose. She further concluded that Attorney Jacobson may simply have not brought up the initial $1000 retainer fee during the OLR's investigation, as opposed to misrepresenting that matter, because that initial payment was outside the general period that was the subject of the investigation. ¶ 18. The OLR accepts the referee's conclusion that there was no misconduct involved with Counts 1-3 and 13-14. However, Attorney Jacobson contests the conclusion of misconduct with respect to Count 12. He argues that in the absence of a full transcript of the OLR's investigation there is insufficient evidence that he misrepresented anything to the agency. He also insists that he did prepare a bill for the client's services because at the very least the billing information was on his computer which should qualify as a bill. Finally, he submits that any misstatements he may have made to the OLR were inadvertent and due only to his lack of information at the time. ¶ 19. The OLR responds that the testimony of its investigator was sufficient to provide the necessary evidence to support the misconduct finding. It further argues there was testimony from the client and his wife that they never received a bill and that it is disingenuous to contend that something on Attorney Jacobson's computer that was never sent to the client would qualify as a bill. ¶ 20. We adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the referee with respect to all of these counts. Both with respect to the counts on which no misconduct was found and the single count where there was a violation, we believe the referee was best situated to judge the credibility of the witnesses. There is no indication that the findings of fact that support the referee's conclusions are clearly erroneous. ¶ 21. We reject Attorney Jacobson's contention that the OLR had to present a full transcript of its investigatory process, rather than simply the testimony of its investigator, to provide the necessary evidence to support Count 12. We also reject his contention that billing information on his computer, which was never sent to the client, can be characterized as a bill.