NW Lawyer - January 2019

Behind The Scenes

When Shaquina Justice met he attorney hired to handle her husband’s appeal, she had already been fighting for nearly four years to clear her husband of criminal charges that resulted in a first-degree assault conviction for his role in a South Seattle shootout. At trial, her husband claimed self-defense, but the jury didn’t buy it. It didn’t take long, after hiring the attorney to mount an appeal, for her to realize that was a mistake.

“He wasn’t showing up in court,”
she recently said of her experience. “I
paid him $11,000 and he did next to
nothing. I couldn’t even reach him on
the phone.”
Two years later, Justice finally got
a bit of good news in the form of a

$10,500 check from the Washington State Bar Association's (WSBA) Client Protection Fund (CPF). Hers was the largest award among the nine former clients of this attorney who applied for relief from the Fund.

“I really appreciate the fund,” Justice
said. “I’m not sure how I could recover
the money lost any other way.”
Her difficult experience with that
attorney wasn’t unique. In all, the
CPF awarded $31,019 to seven of the
attorney’s former clients.

The attorney resigned in lieu of discipline, which means he can never apply for readmission to practice law in Washington. “The one thing that bothered me was that he might be able to go and practice somewhere else, in another state,” Justice said.

Until recently, the CPF was known as the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection (LFCP). The name change occurred in 2017 in response to the inclusion of Limited Practice Officers (LPOs) and Limited License Legal Technicians (LLLTs) as members of the Bar.

Established by the Washington Supreme Court in 1994, the LFCP Board replaced the WSBA Indemnity Fund, which had been in place since 1960. The state Supreme Court approved the change at the request of WSBA with the adoption of Rule 15 of the Admission and Practice Rules. Lawyers and LLLTs contribute to the Fund with an annually assessed fee in addition to their license fee. Currently, the annual assessment is $30.

So why should Bar members be required to contribute to the CPF?

Unlike doctors, accountants, or architects, legal practitioners are members of a uniquely self-regulating profession.

The Washington Supreme Court regulates the legal professions in Washington, and WSBA, through authority delegated to it by the Court, administers admission, licensing, and discipline.

Eligibility to receive a gift from the
CPF focuses on intent: did the legal
professional dishonestly mishandle a
client’s money? Applicants must show
by a preponderance of the evidence that
they lost money or property due to the
dishonest acts of a Washington lawyer or
LLLT. Examples of dishonest acts include
theft or embezzlement, conversion, or
refusal to return unearned fees. The Fund
can also make gifts to applicants when
payments are not returned due to the
WSBA member’s death, disappearance,
or inability to practice. Applicants are
required to show that no other form of
compensation is available through the
legal system, bond, or insurance. Clients
receiving gifts are required to return them
to the Fund if they are reimbursed from
any other source.

“It has to be a dishonest action,” said Brenda Jackson, the CPF analyst who deals directly with applicants. Gifts may be awarded only to compensate clients for the amount of money a legal professional purposefully took or mishandled. They cannot be awarded in cases of malpractice or fee disputes. “Malpractice can be negligent rather than dishonest,” she said.

As trustees of the Fund, WSBA’s Board of Governors appoints 11 WSBA members and two community representatives to serve on the Client Protection Board.

The Client Protection Board reviews applications for monetary gifts from the Fund and can award gifts of up to $25,000 per application. Larger gifts must be approved by the Board of Governors as trustees of the Fund. The maximum gift amount is $150,000, with no limit on the aggregate amount paid on multiple claims against a single legal practitioner.

That $30 Annual Contribution Puts

PROTECTING THE PUBLIC

into Practice

By Noel S. Brady "We're often dealing with people who are spending their last dime or borrowing money from family members to pay for legal representation."