Lawyer disbarred after failing to pay back client

Link for opinion: http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/ebriefs/files/20100608.htm

In Joan Myers v. Commission for lawyer discipline, the lawyer Joan Myers was disbarred and ordered to pay attorneys fees and direct expenses in the amount of $7,616.06, after she broke TDRPC 1.03(a), 1.14(a), and 1.14(b) in the Texas TDRPC.

Myers knowingly put a clients fund into her own bank account and did not leave it in a separate trust or escrow account. She also did not maintain any records of the money that she acquired from her client. Along with failure to hold the funds in a separate account she also neglected to notify the client when she received funds in which a client has an interest, failure to promptly deliver funds, and failure to render fill accounting upon request. Myers also failed to keep her client reasonably informed and failed to respond to requests for information.

This case teaches us the importance of updating our clients promptly and efficiently. We need to make sure that our clients have as much information on what is going on in their case as they need to. We also need to know the importance of keeping separate accounts when they are going to generate interests for the clients and to keep records of everything that has to do with the case. Making sure that a client is informed is quite possibly the most important thing within our legal system. Within the Texas rule 1.03(a), it states a “failure to keep a client reasonably informed and promptly comply with reasonable requests for information.” You have to keep your client up to speed on everything. With the other two Texas rules 1.14(a) and (b) you must keep your clients money in a separate account and maintain the records of that account.