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Little Rock lawyer suspended; Bentonville lawyer reprimanded Friday, Jan 19, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A Little Rock lawyer was suspended and a Bentonville lawyer was reprimanded in separate actions Thursday. The state Supreme Court considered a petition to disbar Larry Dunklin of Little Rock after the court's Committee on Professional Conduct found that Dunklin made a false statement to a judge and mishandled a client trust account. After reviewing the case, the high court decided instead to follow a special judge's recommendation to suspend Dunklin's law license for three years. Also Thursday, the conduct committee reprimanded lawyer Bruce Bennett of Bentonville for failing to file an appeal for a client in a workers' compensation case. Dunklin's conduct was called into question after he was chosen to act as the closing agent on an $80,000 loan. After the lender, First Magnus Financial Corporation, discovered that a mortgage had not been filed and Dunklin had not made payments, it filed a lawsuit against Dunklin, who then failed to file an answer. During a deposition, Dunklin was asked if he had previously represented the recipient of the loan, Mark Kimbrough. Dunklin said he had not, but in fact he had represented Kimbrough in a criminal case in 1992 and in several real estate transactions since then. A default judgment of $96,727 was entered against Dunklin in September 2001. In a subsequent investigation, the committee found that in addition to mishandling the real estate transaction and making a false statement to a judge, Dunklin improperly used a client trust account to pay personal expenses. Dunklin told the committee he simply forgot he had previously represented Kimbrough. He said when he wrote checks on the trust account, he mistakenly believed he had personal funds in the account to cover the checks. The committee filed a petition to disbar Dunklin, but Jack Lessenberry, a special judge appointed in the case, determined that Dunklin's actions did not result from dishonest or selfish motives and recommended a three-year suspension. Lessenberry also noted that Dunklin has done good work for the community, including serving on a crime reparations board and the board of trustees for the University of the Ozarks, and that an annual award for service to crime victims has been created in Dunklin's name. Justice Tom Glaze did not vote with the majority to accept Lessenberry's recommendation. In a dissenting opinion, Glaze said Dunklin's claim that he believed he had personal funds in the trust account did not satisfy the problem because "an attorney is not supposed to be writing personal checks out of his trust account." In the Bennett case, the conduct committee found that Rosa Elena Cortez hired Bennett in November 2004 to appeal an adverse decision by the state Workers' Compensation Commission, but he failed to do so before the deadline. Bennett failed to respond to a formal complaint, so no public hearing was held, according to the committee. He was reprimanded and ordered to pay the committee's costs of $50. |
