Ethics
Fired California bar executive director should get 30-day suspension, panel says, citing ‘duty to be truthful’
Then-State Sen. Joseph Dunn of California at a hearing at the California State Capitol in Sacramento on March 30, 2005. Dunn was the State Bar of California’s executive director between 2010 and 2014. (Photo by Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press)
The former executive director of the State Bar of California should receive a short suspension for misrepresentations that he made to the state bar’s board of trustees about funding for a trip to Mongolia, according to a review panel of the State Bar Court of California.
Joseph Dunn, the state bar’s executive director between 2010 and 2014, should be placed on probationary status for one year, and he should be suspended from law practice for the first 30 days of the probation period, according to the review department of the State Bar Court of California.
Reuters and Law.com have coverage of the July 2 recommendation.
Dunn had wrongly told trustees that no state bar funds would be used to fund a trip to Mongolia to help reform its legal system, a hearing judge had concluded. Dunn was fired in November 2014 after the bar spent more than $7,000 on the trip, $5,000 of which was repaid by the now-collapsed Girardi Keese law firm, according to an internal report and the review department’s decision.
The appeals panel affirmed the hearing judge’s finding that Dunn was responsible for two acts of “moral turpitude” but found that her recommendation for a one-year stayed suspension wasn’t enough.
“We determine that a 30-day actual suspension is the appropriate discipline in this matter,” the review department said. “Dunn’s misconduct is especially concerning given his duty to be truthful not just as an attorney but as an executive with fiduciary obligations over an agency that regulates the legal profession.”
The review department refused, however, to reinstate counts tossed by the hearing judge alleging that Dunn misled the board of trustees when he said there was no known opposition to a state bill that would have allowed state bar civil lawsuits against people who practice law without a license, according to Courthouse News Service.
The panel also noted factors in mitigation, including Dunn’s considerable number of years as a licensed attorney without discipline and his “extraordinary good character,” as affirmed by seven witnesses. Dunn was licensed to practice law in 1986.
Dunn is represented by Alan Greenberg of Greenberg Gross. He told Reuters that the “baseless decision” will be appealed, and the ethics charges were retaliation for Dunn’s efforts to “rid the bar of its entrenched and dysfunctional bureaucrats.”
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