Court Opinion

ID: 9605467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:37:24.827646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:28.330506
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(concurring) -I concur with the majority, án’d wish to discuss the’ broader’implicationof the problem’ of a lawyer’s embezzling funds‘fr bin a client.......*
Even'though only an infinitesimally small percentage of láwyers ever embezzle funds’ it gives the' profession a”bád name, and the bar as a whole becomes the object of public condemnation.” .
The state bar is vigorously .and vigilantly policing -, its membership. It recommends disbarment proceedings against an errant member;.however, it has not.as yet recognized what obligation if any,, it has to a victim of defalcation by a lawyer.
- In England and in many other common-law countries, the legal profession, has voluntarily established “a client’s security fund’’ to reimburse the client when an .attorney betrays a trust or misappropriates funds. The creation of such a fund was recognized as “a debt of honor owed by the profession” to.the injured person.
The American Bar Association has for many years urged that state bars follow the example of England. Reginald Heber Smith, in 44 American Bar Ass’n Jour., February, 1958, “The Client’s Security Fund, A Debt of Honor Owed by the Profession,” fully states the arguments in favor of a client’s security fund.
The state bar associations of Vermont and Oregon have recently decided to establish such a fund.
Perhaps the time has arrived when we of the legal profession of this state should recognize our obligation to a client who is a victim of defalcation.
Hill, J., concurs with Rosellini, J.