Opinion ID: 1532447
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: MRPC 5.3(a) and (b)

Text: The hearing judge found that Mr. Zuckerman had violated MRPC 5.3(a) and (b) because he did not have reasonable measures in place to ensure that his trust account had all of the funds on deposit for clients to whom he was holding money. Rule 5.3, Responsibilities Regarding Non-lawyer Assistants, provides in relevant part: With respect to a nonlawyer employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer (a) a partner in the law firm shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurance that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer; (b) a lawyer having direct supervisory authority over the non-lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer.... Respondent delegated the task of balancing the trust account to one of his employees, Stacy Kohler, and her job was to reconcile the bank statements against the check stubs for the trust account. Respondent testified that Stacy Kohler had not finished [balancing the trust account] because she was doing other things, and that the bank statements usually would come in within two weeks of the date that appeared on them, but that sometimes a month or two would pass without the statements being reviewed. He further admitted that checks were written on funds that had not been deposited in the bank and on March 16, 2000, the trust account had a negative balance of which he was unaware. We concur with the hearing judge that respondent did not instruct his employees of the proper management of the trust account and inform himself of the status of his employees' efforts to monitor the funds in the account. Such a failure to oversee his employees' tasks constitutes a violation of MRPC 5.3(a) and (b) because Mr. Zuckerman did not make reasonable efforts to ensure that his employees' conduct complied with his own professional obligations. We have held that had the respondent exercised a reasonable degree of supervision over [his employee], he might have detected [the employee's] error before any ethical proscriptions had been violated under Rule 5.3. Glenn, 341 Md. at 481, 671 A.2d at 479 (quoting Attorney Grievance Comm'n v. Dacy, 313 Md. 1, 5, 542 A.2d 841, 843 (1988)).