A Warren attorney has been suspended for up to two years for professional misconduct. According to a statement issued Thursday, the Supreme Court of Ohio suspended Kenneth N. Shaw's law license for two years, with the second year of that term stayed on conditions. The Court said Shaw displayed professional misconduct in his handling of legal matters for two sets of clients. He also failed to cooperate with authorities investigating the complaints against him, the Court said.
In a 6-1 per curium opinion announced Thursday, the Court adopted findings by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline that Shaw obtained and then defaulted on a $13,000 personal loan from an elderly client of his law practice, then drew up a trust agreement for the same client that named Shaw's five children as beneficiaries. This action violated the conflict of interest rules.
The Court also found that in a separate case, Shaw collected legal fees from two clients for whom he had prepared a guardianship application without first obtaining the approval of the local probate court. Shaw was found by the probate court to have engaged in concealment of assets in the case, and ordered to refund $1,200 of the legal fees he had improperly collected from those clients.
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Warren Attorney Suspended by State Supreme Court
2 comments:
The reason the Organized Bar has sunk so low in the public esteem is for just such situations: If they allow the guy to practice, who's to say he won't do it again? So years can go by and he can continue stealing. Putting his family into a client trust which he created, should tell the people that run discipline that this guy has got to go - for good - and not just get off witih a slap on the wrist, which is all that suspension really is.
Are they blind? A lawyer takes an oath. If he steals, he is not fit to practice - ever!
Truly, two years is only a start. He should have lost his license forever.
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