$3,000 costs Russellville attorney his law license
Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008
A state attorney conduct panel yanked the license of a Russellville attorney for at least six months Thursday for accepting $ 3, 000 from a client even though his law license was about to be suspended.
Richard H. Young faced a three-month suspension in 2004 for not responding to a complaint made to the Committee on Professional Conduct when Linnie Thomas paid him to defend her son against a felony charge.
Young did not tell the Thomases that his license was going to be suspended. Thomas later learned of the suspension in a newspaper.
Thomas requested a refund, but Young did not respond until Thomas contacted the committee.
At a committee hearing, Young agreed to repay Thomas but said a suspension of his license would make it difficult to find work.
After the committee voted 4-3 to suspend Young’s license in 2007, Young appealed to the state Supreme Court, arguing that his 2004 suspension left him “in a shaken frame of mind” not fully able to grasp his situation.
“Young’s dishonest conduct and failure to communicate adequately with the Thomases led him to profit at the Thomases expense,” wrote Justice Robert L. Brown in the April 24 opinion.
Young’s license can be reinstated only after a majority of the committee agrees.
In other business, the committee cautioned Pat Marshall, a Little Rock attorney, for not maintaining a separate account for a $ 2, 500 retainer. She was ordered to pay $ 50 in costs.
Her partner, Max Horner, was disciplined for the same offense by the panel in April.
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