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Attorney Grievance Commission v. Zuckerman4/13/2005
nto his operating account and supplemented them with money from sources unrelated to the particular client's representation. We held that Adams' conduct violated MRPC 1.15(a) and Maryland Rule 16-604.
In arriving at the appropriate sanction, we observed that Adams' handling of the client's money was "sloppy and negligent," but unintentional. Id. at 98, 706 A.2d at 1086. We credited as mitigating factors Adams' lack of a prior disciplinary record and that the funds provided by the client ultimately were received by the Comptroller.
Even further along the sanction spectrum is Attorney Grievance Comm'n v. Stolarz, 379 Md. 387, 842 A.2d 42 (2004). In Stolarz, we held that an attorney, with no history of past disciplinary infractions before this Bar for twenty-three years, negligently violated MRPC 1.15 (b) when he failed to pay one creditor of a client $300.00 out of the client's settlement proceeds. Id. at 391-94, 842 A.2d at 44-45. We observed that Stolarz's unintentional negligence (failing to note the assignment in the client's file when he disbursed the settlement proceeds; moreover, the client failed to draw his attention to the missing payment) may be better disposed of, upon remand, by termination of the investigation with a warning to Respondent, thereby deterring future, repeated transgressions. Id. at 405, 842 A.2d at 50. We noted that Stolarz made only one mistake (of a relatively small amount) with one client that impacted only one assignee of that client. Stolarz ultimately paid the client's assignee from his own funds and expressed remorse for his error. Id.
Against this backdrop, I turn to the appropriate sanction in this case. Zuckerman was first alerted to the gravity of his employee's misappropriation of funds in July of 2002 when he received an anonymous tip. His part-time investigation into the extent of the damage began in October 2002, but was not completed until August 2004. The investigation revealed impacts affecting sixty clients. His response to his own unfortunate accounting practices and the theft was considerably slower than Sperling, who took "only" nine months to assess and correct the discrepancy there. Bar Counsel's independent investigation in Zuckerman's case uncovered 109 clients with negative balances between 1998 and 2002-indicating the widespread scope of the accounting problems from Zuckerman's irresponsible business practices. Many of these clients' accountings had negative balances before Ms. Becker defrauded Zuckerman in May 2002. Arguably, if it were not for Ms. Becker's theft, Zuckerman would have been unaware of these negative client balances in his attorney trust account and would have continued his improvident conduct indefinitely.
The sum total of funds at risk throughout this period was $311,898.11, based on checks drawn on his trust account to clients before funds belonging to those clients were deposited in his trust account. This recipe for disaster reached its nadir on 16 March 2000 when he disbursed $21,997.96 on behalf of thirty-four clients, at a time when he had a negative account balance of $363.13. Zuckerman readily admitted that he issued client checks on an "entitlement" basis, rather than waiting for the settlement proceeds to be deposited and completion of the appropriate waivers and accounting statements. Although he periodically did no more than "rob Peter to pay Paul," sometimes for short periods, he routinely advanced money rightfully belonging to other clients to satisfy different clients he felt were "entitled" to their money. Zuckerman's attempts at justifying this ongoing violation of the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct regarding the safekeeping of client property are unavailing.
Z
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