Oh.. at long last a pre pandemic dodgy lawyer story. We feel so much more relaxed now.
An Ohio attorney charged with 71 ethics rule violations while representing 12 clients, who offered drugs to one client, solicited them from another, and failed to show for his temporary suspension hearing, was banned indefinitely by the state’s highest court. Reports Bloomberg
Several violations involved misappropriation of client funds, which warrants disbarment, the Ohio Supreme Court noted in its Wednesday opinion.
But William Matthew Tinch suffers from a chemical dependency, and “we often temper this presumptive sanction when an attorney’s misconduct was motivated by addiction and the attorney has demonstrated a commitment to recovery,” the court said.
Tinch’s misconduct happened between 2015 and 2017, it said. His acts included failing to deposit unearned legal fees into his client trust account, misappropriating funds that he’d deposited into his client trust account, falsely telling one client’s father that he’d taken action when he had not, and not following another client’s wishes by filing a divorce complaint instead of seeking a dissolution.
In addition, the Middletown, Ohio, lawyer offered one client the anti-anxiety medication Xanax in the presence of the client’s children, and asked another client he knew had been prescribed medication after a car accident to provide him with “ten Percocet or Vicodin pills,” the court said
