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Attorney Grievance Commission v. Zuckerman4/13/2005
ccount." Furthermore, Section 10-306 of the Business Occupations and Professions Article provides that " lawyer may not use trust money for any purpose other than the purpose for which the trust money is entrusted to the lawyer."
The evidence adduced at the hearing established that Mr. Zuckerman often represented clients in divorce, criminal, and bankruptcy matters. He admitted to this Court, and the hearing court below, that in those cases he would charge clients a flat fee, which was paid in advance of the services rendered, usually on or shortly before the day of trial, and then deposit it into Mr. Zuckerman's operating account. As such, he would deposit the funds into his operating account as if he already had earned them rather than properly placing the funds into his trust account in contravention of the purpose for which they were entrusted. Thus, we agree with the hearing judge's conclusions that such practices violate Sections 10-304 and 10-306 of the Business Occupations and Professions Article, as well as, MRPC 1.15(a). See Blum, 373 Md. at 298, 818 A.2d at 233; McLaughlin, 372 Md. at 503-04, 813 A.2d at 1166-670.
Zuckerman also committed violations of 1.15(a) and Section 10-306 of the Business Occupations and Professions Article when he disbursed funds to his clients from his trust account before their settlement checks had been deposited into the trust account, thereby providing funds belonging to one client to another. The record establishes that this was a routine practice in Zuckerman's office and on occasion months would lapse before the settlement checks for the clients would be deposited into the trust account. According to Zuckerman's testimony, he would write the checks so long as there were funds available in the trust account without regard to which client's funds were in the account to cover the checks. We have held that such a failure to maintain the integrity of client funds violates Section 10-306. See Glenn, 341 Md. at 481-82, 671 A.2d at 479-80.
3. MRPC 5.3 (a) and (b)
The hearing judge found that Mr. Zuckerman had violated MRPC 5.3(a) and (b) because he did not have reasonable measures in place to ensure that his trust account had all of the funds on deposit for clients to whom he was holding money. Rule 5.3, "Responsibilities Regarding Non-lawyer Assistants," provides in relevant part:
With respect to a non-lawyer employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer (a) a partner in the law firm shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurance that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer; (b) a lawyer having direct supervisory authority over the non-lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer . . . .
Respondent delegated the task of balancing the trust account to one of his employees, Stacy Kohler, and her job was to reconcile the bank statements against the check stubs for the trust account. Respondent testified that Stacy Kohler "had not finished [balancing the trust account] because she was doing other things," and that the bank statements usually would come in within two weeks of the date that appeared on them, but that sometimes a month or two would pass without the statements being reviewed. He further admitted that checks were written on funds that had not been deposited in the bank and on March 16, 2000, the trust account had a negative balance of which he was unaware.
We concur with the hearing judge that "respondent did not instruct his employees of the proper management of the trust account and infor
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