Mark Dubois' best advice to attorneys is simple: Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Dubois spends his days defending attorneys facing ethics charges as part of his practice at Geraghty & Bonnano.

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But before that, he was Connecticut's first prosecutor of lawyers.

His biggest tip to attorneys: Don't let personal and professional struggles balloon into ethics charges.

"If you are overwhelmed, find a colleague who can give you some advice," he said. "If you are a young lawyer, there are mentors out there."

3 tips from Mark Dubois

• Sit with a bookkeeper to get financial records in order. "When you are really busy running around between courts and closings, it's hard to remember there is the business of law and the practice of law," Dubois said.
• Use malpractice insurance to pay for ethics representation. Attorneys who need help sometimes don't realize this is an option, Dubois said.
• Treat the Connecticut Bar Association's ethics committee as a resource. "There is a whole body of ethics opinions out there via the CBA," Dubois said.

The ex-disciplinarian says he now fields weekly attorney calls for assistance, once from an overwhelmed and weeping man facing a random financial audit. Dubois referred him to a expert who helped the lawyer "work … through the forest."

"They need a little guidance and I give it to them," said Dubois, who estimates he prosecuted more than 1,000 cases and supervised thousands more during his eight-year tenure as Connecticut's first chief disciplinary counsel. "I tell them which rule of professional conduct is applicable."

One of the gravest errors is sloppy bookkeeping.

"The rules require you to have your fiduciary account, or IOLTA, balanced to the penny," Dubois said. "If you don't, it could be a career-ender."

'What they don't know'

In a law career that has spanned about four decades, and included stints as a full-time law professor and president of the Connecticut Bar Association, Dubois has seen three types of attorney-discipline cases.