Page 3
Review Department:
Ex-State Bar Executive Director Joseph Dunn Should Incur 30-Day Actual Suspension
By a MetNews Staff Writer
|
|
|
JOSEPH DUNN |
The State Bar Review Department has indicated its disagreement with a hearing judge that former state Sen. Joseph L. Dunn should simply be placed on one year of probation based on lying to the Board of Trustees in 2013, while he was executive director, that no funds from the agency’s coffers would be used to fund his trip to Mongolia, but recommended that the penalty be boosted to a still lenient one of a 30-day suspension.
Final disposition is up to the California Supreme Court.
The trip took place from Jan. 24-29, 2014. Dunn was accompanied by Tom Layton, then an investigator for the State Bar who was frequently in the company of Tom Girardi, later to be disbarred, and the 2009-10 State Bar president, Howard Miller, who worked for Girardi’s firm.
Contrary to his assurance to the governing body at its November 2013 meeting, $6,041.72 in air fare and cell phone charges were billed to and paid by the State Bar; additionally, Dunn requested, and received, reimbursement for charges to his personal cellphone account.
Later, however, Girardi’s firm sent a check in the amount of $5,000 made out to the State Bar Access & Education Foundation to cover the expenses.
On Oct. 30, 2014, the board fired Dunn. He sued for wrongful termination, and a settlement was reached.
Ribas’s Opinion
Writing for a three-judge panel, Tamara M. Ribas said in the opinion, filed Wednesday:
“One of the most fundamental rules for attorneys is honesty….We consider the absence of aggravation and the substantial mitigation but find a period of actual suspension is warranted here given the serious misconduct that occurred in Dunn’s position as Executive Director of the State Bar.”
She pointed to Business & Professions Code §6106 which provides:
“The commission of any act involving moral turpitude, dishonesty or corruption, whether the act is committed in the course of his relations as an attorney or otherwise .. . constitutes a cause for disbarment or suspension.”
‘Intentionally Misled Board’
Ribas declared: “[W]e conclude that Dunn intentionally misled the Board in violation of section 6106.”
In so doing, she said, he breached his fiduciary duties to the State Bar.
The Review Department recommended that Dunn be ordered to take and to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination and to pay a $1,500 sanction and the State Bar’s costs.
Dunn, 66, was admitted to the State Bar in 1986. His law degree is from the University of Minnesota.
Copyright 2025, Metropolitan News Company