Opinion ID: 2093603
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Woomer Matter

Text: Respondent had represented complainant and his wife in various matters prior to Mrs. Woomer's request that he represent her in a municipal court case involving an allegation of defrauding a creditor. Although respondent did not agree to represent Mrs. Woomer in the municipal court matter, he did agree to help her by contacting the complaining witness and settling the underlying financial claim. Respondent advised the Woomers that he had settled the fraud claim with the creditor and that the criminal action would be dismissed. Neither had, in fact, happened and Mrs. Woomer was arrested. To remedy the matter, respondent paid the creditor $1,000 from his trust account and the criminal complaint was dismissed. The settlement monies, however, had not come from Mrs. Woomer. Accordingly, the Disciplinary Review Board concluded that the $1,000 had to have come from respondent's deposit of personal funds in his trust account or from the trust funds of another client. In another aspect of the Woomer complaint, Mr. Woomer, a beneficiary of an estate being handled by the respondent, charged that respondent, after pressure from another beneficiary, paid the beneficiary $3,000 (believed by respondent to be slightly less than the amount of the ultimate distributive share) prior to final resolution of the estate. The trust funds held for the estate at this time amounted to only $1,000. Again, the money must have come from the respondent's personal funds or his clients' trust funds, which were commingled. The final aspect of the complaint objected to the respondent's failure to render an itemized legal bill. The bill rendered said only legal fees from year 1965 to date, $1,000. The Disciplinary Review Board made no specific finding on this aspect and we do not take it into account in our disposition.