Aging Attorney Gets Tripped Up By State Bar's Random Trust Account Audit Revealing Major Irregularities; Despite Lack Of Complaining Clients, Deposit Of $2.1 Million Of His Own Funds To Cover Account Shorfalls & Voluntary Relinquishment Of Law License, Lawyer Now Faces Criminal Larceny Charge For Playing Fast & Loose With Unwitting Clients' Cash

In Stamford, Connecticut, the Stamford Advocate reports:

• A well-known former real estate lawyer has been accused of misappropriating more than $2 million from his attorney trust account.(1)
  
  Burt Hoffman, 75, has been charged with first-degree larceny and was released on a promise to appear in court.
  
  Unlike other attorneys similarly charged, Hoffman was not accused by any of his clients. Hoffman, who was admitted to the bar in 1970 and had law offices with his son on Summer Street, got into trouble following a random audit of his Interest on Lawyers Trust Account.
  
  The trust accounts are used when client funds are collected for many reasons, including home sales, retainers and personal injury settlements. State law prohibits co-mingling attorneys’ personal funds with their clients. Random audits of trust funds are conducted weekly throughout the state, Assistant Chief Disciplinary Counsel Beth Baldwin said.
  
  Hoffman’s Attorney Bob Frost did not return a call for comment.
  
  A February 2016 audit showed Hoffman’s trustee accounts were at a $1.5 million deficit, according to his four-page arrest affidavit prepared by Stamford State’s Attorney inspector John Forlivio.
  
  The auditors listed five issues Hoffman needed to address, including hiring a bookkeeper, creating a proper ledger and an account for the negative $1.5 million.
  
  A bookkeeper also found several questionable disbursements from client accounts to companies owned and controlled by Hoffman, the affidavit said.
  
  Hoffman deposited a total of $2.1 million of his own money into his trustee account to cover the shortfalls that were “due to accounting errors, omissions and improper disbursements,” the affidavit said.
  
  In November 2016, the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel filed a request to suspend Hoffman’s law license. In April, Hoffman resigned his right to practice law in the state and his resignation was accepted one month later by a Stamford judge who also assigned attorney Mark Henderson as a trustee over the accounts.
  
  “A lawyer is expected to protect the funds of a client with utmost fiduciary responsibility,” Baldwin said. “Trust between the lawyer and client is paramount to the attorney-client relationship. Breach of that trust violates the core values of attorney ethical obligations.”

Source: Former Stamford attorney accused of misappropriating client funds.

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(1) For "attorney ripoff reimbursement funds" that sometimes help cover the losses created by the dishonest conduct of lawyers licensed in states throughout the United States and in the Canadian provinces, see:

• Directory Of Lawyers' Funds For Client Protection (February 2017) (includes Canadian recovery 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.