Opinion ID: 1294866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: client three

Text: ¶ 35. Count 7 alleged a violation of former SCR 20:1.15(a) [10] (property of clients to be held in trust). ¶ 36. This count arose out of Attorney Jacobson's representation of a client for which he received an advance fee of $3500 which was placed in his trust account on May 4, 2000. Attorney Jacobson never actually performed any work for the client and issued a refund check to him over two months later. But when the $3500 was deposited, there was an overdraft of approximately $500 in the trust account which the $3500 helped bring back into balance. When the refund was made, the $500 overdraft, plus an overdraft charge, had not yet been repaid so the refund reinstated the negative balance in the trust account. In fact, since there was not enough in the trust account to cover the refund Attorney Jacobson quickly had to deposit yet more funds from another client to cover it. ¶ 37. The referee concluded that Attorney Jacobson did not apply basic trust fund standards to the handling of his account and thus misconduct occurred. ¶ 38. Attorney Jacobson does not dispute the misconduct but relies on a mitigating factor that will be discussed later. ¶ 39. The findings of fact of the referee with respect to this count are not clearly erroneous and we agree with her legal conclusion that misconduct occurred.