Opinion ID: 1855943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Testimony of Yvonne Burst

Text: Ms. Burst was respondent's legal secretary from 1992 until the end of 1995. She testified that Mr. Schmidt, an attorney who shared office space with respondent, was the attorney initially involved in the Bragg case. Respondent's association in the Bragg matter was terminated after respondent and Mr. Schmidt had a disagreement about fees and costs. According to Ms. Burst, Mr. Schmidt felt that some of the costs had been padded, and later there was a question about a medical payments check that came into the office that was not credited to the client's account. Ms. Burst testified that she was responsible for the costs statements, which she prepared from various sources, including bills that were received and checks that had been written. When a client's statement was ready to be billed, Ms. Burst said that she would first print out a copy for respondent to review. If respondent made any changes to a bill, including increasing an item, she made the changes without questioning him. Ms. Burst also testified that she was responsible for making deposits into respondent's operating and trust accounts. Concerning the $982 medical payments check from State Farm Insurance Company, Ms. Burst testified that she saw the check on respondent's desk, along with the Bragg file. Respondent did not give the check to her for posting, and he did not give her a receipt for the item to show that he deposited it. Ms. Burst said she knew the check was not deposited into the trust account, but thought the check was determined to have been deposited to respondent's personal account. She also testified that Mr. Schmidt claimed he had not endorsed the check. Ms. Burst testified that she did not know what happened to the check after Mr. Schmidt removed the file from respondent's office, under the pretense that he needed to bring the entire file to respondent. On cross-examination, Ms. Burst admitted that it was difficult for her to double check the costs statement in the Bragg matter after Mr. Schmidt removed the file from the office. She testified it was her practice to document every item for which she had a receipt; postage was figured manually and she tried to guesstimate how many copies she had made. However, without access to the receipts which had been in the file, Ms. Burst testified that she could only estimate what the final costs were, based on her computer records. She also testified that she thought the med pay check was paper-clipped to the costs file at the time Mr. Schmidt removed it from the office.