Opinion ID: 1536896
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Record Keeping and Trust Accounting Violations

Text: Applicable disciplinary rules also provide that complete records of entrusted funds shall be kept by the lawyer and shall be preserved for a period of five years after the termination of the representation (R. 1.15(a)) and that such records shall also be preserved for a period of five years after final distribution of such funds . . . or any portion thereof. D.C. Bar R. X1, § 19(f). There can be no question that Respondent violated these requirements. His file, as produced to Bar Counsel in 2001, contained no account statements, cancelled checks, or other records demonstrating the required disbursements. He has not produced such records in more than five years since he received Bar Counsel's inquiry. And he has admitted not having such records and indeed not having had any written accounting system. See, e.g., Tr. 282, 287. Rule 1.17(a) requires that trust funds be segregated from a lawyer's own funds and deposited in one or more specially designated accounts at a financial institution and that [t]he title of each such account shall contain the words `Trust Account' or `Escrow Account,' as well as the lawyer's or the lawyer's law firm's identity. The account into which Respondent deposited his client's settlement proceeds did not contain the words Trust Account or Escrow Account in its title as required by the Rule. Tr. 22 (bank representative's testimony that account is not trust account); BX 4, 5, 6 (account statements lacking necessary words in title). Even though he took a course on the subject in 1995, Respondent conceded that in 1996 the account was not denominated as a trust account, Pre-Hrg. Tr. 5-7 (Jan. 20, 2006), and the Rule has therefore clearly been violated.