| Description: |
Young Suk Oh (WSBA No. 29692, admitted 1999), of Lynnwood, was ordered to receive a reprimand on December 29, 2009, following a hearing. This discipline was based on conduct involving trust account irregularities.
In October 2006, the Bar Association received a trust account overdraft notice from Bank A when a check of $21,750 was presented for payment at the time the balance on the trust account was $5,877.39. The Association began an audit of Mr. Oh's trust account records from May 2006 to September 2006.
In 2005, Mr. Oh was the mutual escrow agent for the buyer and seller in the sale of a business transaction. The funds from the sale were deposited into Mr. Oh's IOLTA account at Bank A. In October 2005, the parties agreed that Mr. Oh would "hold back" $24,600 of the funds until they agreed on the disbursement. The funds remained in Mr. Oh's IOLTA account into early 2006. Several times, Mr. Oh was instructed to write a check from the funds and then was instructed to cancel the check. Around May 2006, Mr. Oh asked another attorney to draft an interpleader action to deposit the funds into court. Mr. Oh issued a check for $21,745 to the county clerk. Before the action could be filed, Mr. Oh was instructed to wait because the parties were negotiating. Mr. Oh placed the $21,745 check in the file but did not mark "void" on it. In the client ledger, he cancelled the $21,745 check to show the correct balance held for the client.
In early 2006, Mr. Oh opened a new IOLTA account with Bank B and began to phase out the Bank A IOLTA account. Near the end of May 2006, Mr. Oh stopped writing checks from the Bank A account; by then most of the funds had been transferred to the new IOLTA account at Bank B. In September 2006, Mr. Oh arranged to file the interpleader action prepared in May 2006 and sent the $21,745 check issued under the old account at Bank A along with the complaint to the county clerk. At the time, there was only $5,877.39 left in the Bank A trust account. This caused an overdraft.
During the audit period, the Association identified four payments from Mr. Oh's trust account that were made with other client funds. During this time period, Mr. Oh made payments on behalf of clients before the funds were deposited in the trust account, notwithstanding that he had been notified in September 2005 that this practice violated the RPCs. Disbursements were made on behalf of clients when there were insufficient funds on deposit, thereby placing other client funds at risk.
Mr. Oh's conduct violated former RPC 1.14 and/or RPC 1.15A(h)(7), prohibiting a lawyer from disbursing funds from a trust account until deposits have cleared the banking process and been collected, unless the lawyer and bank have a written agreement by which the lawyer personally guarantees all disbursements from the account without recourse to the trust account; and former RPC 1.14 and/or RPC 1.15A(h)(8), prohibiting disbursements on behalf of a client or third person from exceeding the funds of that person on deposit and prohibiting the funds of a client or third person from being used on behalf of anyone else.
Kevin M. Bank represented the Bar Association. Mr. Oh was represented by Jeffrey C. Grant. John J. Tollefsen was the hearing officer. |