Not long after becoming an attorney in 1974, my first mentor taught me to always think of trust account funds as “OPM.” Naively, I asked, “What is OPM?” He replied, “Other people’s money. Lawyers don’t get to mess with other people’s money, ever!”

To me, an attorney engaged in the private practice of law for 31 years, and who served as chairperson of the District One Ethics Committee, talk of “mitigating circumstances” speaks past the point at hand. I find such talk disconcerting. The subject is theft. Chief Justice Robert Wilentz and a unanimous Supreme Court got it right in In re Wilson when they stated, “There is nothing clearer to the public, however, than stealing a client’s money, and nothing worse.” There is no need to revisit this issue. Am I lacking in compassion? Yes, but the subject is “lawyers who knowingly misappropriate” their client’s money. Why am I unforgiving? Because such conduct bespeaks a deep character flaw.

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