Ind. Supremes Disbar Lying, Thieving, Out-Of-Control Attorney; Among Bad Acts: $150K Client Trust Account Heist; Refusal To Refund Unearned Fees, Intimidating/Retaliatory Conduct; Told Staff To Inflate Billable Hours; Ex-Office Manager Blows Whistle To Disciplinary Commission After Lawyer Brandished Gun While Firing Her; Court: "The Seriousness, Scope, & Sheer Brazenness Of [His] Misconduct Is Outrageous!"

In Indianapolis, Indiana, the Indianapolis Business Journal reports:

• An Indianapolis lawyer has been disbarred for stealing about $150,000 from his clients, “disclosing client confidences for purposes of both retaliation and amusement, threatening and intimidating his office staff (and) lying pervasively to all comers,” according to the Indiana Supreme Court.
  
  David J. Steele had been under emergency interim suspension since Sept. 4, when he tendered an affidavit consenting to discipline for eight counts alleging violations of rules of professional conduct. In a court opinion issued [last month], justices adopted the allegations in the Disciplinary Commission’s complaint and concluded "without hesitation that (Steele) should be disbarred.”
  
  Steele operated Steele Legal Group LLC, a family law practice with an office at Keystone at the Crossing. He had been licensed to practice since 2003 and had no prior disciplinary history.
  
  The court identified 16 rule violations from charging an unreasonable fee to lying to the commission. Aside from cheating clients, justices wrote Steele brandished a gun while he fired an office manager about whom he concocted wild stories concerning the staff member’s sexual orientation.
  
  “The seriousness, scope, and sheer brazenness of (Steele)’s misconduct is outrageous," justices wrote. "He stole approximately $150,000 from his clients, threatened and intimidated his staff, disparaged and mocked virtually everyone around him, lied to all comers, and obstructed the commission’s investigation. Perhaps most disturbingly, (Steele) repeatedly and fundamentally breached the duty of confidentiality that lies at the heart of the attorney-client relationship.”
  
  The court found Steele misappropriated the client funds from his attorney trust account. He “redirected most of these unearned fees into his personal or operating account although he sometimes ‘peel(ed) off a few hundred dollars’ to give to his employees as a ‘spot bonus.’”
  
  Steele also typically charged clients a deposit of $2,500 to $3,500 at the beginning of a representation, then “vigorously enforced” non-refundable fee provisions. He “instructed his office staff to inflate billable hours and rates by a variety of means,” justices wrote.
  
  “Numerous clients requested refunds of unearned fees,” the opinion says, “which (Steele) was unable to provide because he had stolen virtually all the funds contained within his trust account.”(1) In other cases, Steele refunded portions of client fees with advance payments collected from other clients.
  
  Much of the evidence against Steele came from his office manager, referred to in the opinion as JD.
  
  Steele “attempted to persuade JD and others to go along with these practices and frequently reminded JD that (Steele) had fired the prior office manager when that person had questioned” his unethical conduct.
  
  Steele fired JD after just two and a half months, at which time JD reported his former boss to the Disciplinary Commission. Steele retaliated in threatening texts, including one in which he wrote, “No one will ever hire you if (I) get disbarred for something you told them. You think lawyers want someone in their office who tried to get their last boss disbarred?”
  
  Justices wrote Steele also lied to the commission by telling them JD was fired for having sex with another man in the office and for using “the firm’s website to post disparaging comments about the gay community."
  
  “Additionally, (Steele) brandished a handgun when he terminated JD’s employment, and … instructed an associate attorney who witnessed this incident to lie about this fact to the commission,” the order says.
  
  Steele also told his staff to “lie to all comers” about his whereabouts and other matters, justices wrote, including falsely telling opposing counsel he was in a hospital waiting room watching a loved one die of cancer or that his dog had just died.
  
  “Respondent made false statements to the commission during its investigation that, by (Steele's) own description, were ‘virtually pathological in frequency and scope,’” justices wrote.
  
  In other counts, Steele was found to have incentivized positive client reviews on his Avvo.com profile and punished people who posted negative reviews by disclosing confidential information. He is also accused of recording conversations of clients and potential clients for his amusement, sharing them with staff and relatives.
  
  He “openly mocked these recorded individuals in his conversations with others and in a meeting with the commission,” the opinion says.

Source: Justices disbar lawyer for $150K theft, other misconduct.

For the Indiana Supreme Court ruling disbarring this attorney, see In re David J. Steele, No. 49S00-1509-DI-527 (Ind. December 1, 2015).

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(1) Clients found to have been victimized by a theft by an Indiana attorney may be able to seek some reimbursement for being screwed over by turning to the Clients’ Financial Assistance Fund of the Indiana State Bar Association, which manages and distribute money collected from annual dues paid by members of the state bar to members of the public who have sustained a financial loss caused by the dishonest conduct of a member of the bar acting as an attorney or a fiduciary.

See generally:

• N.Y. fund for cheated clients wants thieving lawyers disbarred, a July, 2015 Associated Press story on this Fund reporting that the Fund's executive director, among other things, is calling for prompt referral to the local district attorney when the disciplinary committee has uncontested evidence of theft by a lawyer injuring a client or an admission of culpability;
  
  When Lawyers Steal the Escrow, a June, 2005 New York Times story describing some cases of client reimbursements ("With real estate business surging and down-payment amounts rising with home prices, the temptation for a lawyer to filch money from a bulging escrow account and later repay it with other clients' money has never been greater, said lawyers who monitor the thefts."),
  
  Thieving Lawyers Draining Client Security Funds, a December, 1991 New York Times story that gives some-real life examples of how client security funds deal with claims and the pressures the administrators of those funds may feel when left insufficiently financed as a result of the misconduct of a handful of lawyer/scoundrels.

For similar "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that attempt to clean up the financial mess created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in other states and Canada, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (now includes a listing for Canadian client protection funds, courtesy of the American Bar Association);
• Check the USA Client Protection Funds Map;
• Check the Canada Client Protection Funds Map.

Maps available courtesy of The National Client Protection Organization, Inc.