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Richard L. Jones (WSBA No. 12904, admitted 1982), of Bellevue, received a censure on June 10, 2002, following a stipulation approved by the Disciplinary Board on May 8, 2002. This discipline is based upon his failure to maintain adequate records regarding client funds coming into his possession, and the commingling of his personal funds with client funds in his trust account in 2000. (Note: Richard L. Jones is to be distinguished from Richard A. Jones of Seattle, WSBA No. 7671; Richard B. Jones of Port Orchard, WSBA No. 4613; and Richard F. Jones of Olympia, WSBA No. 1460.)
On or about December 7, 2000, Mr. Jones’ IOLTA account became overdrawn, resulting in a notice to the Bar Association. In the course of the investigation, the auditor examined Mr. Jones’ records for the timeframe January 1998 to March 2001. In January 1998, Mr. Jones’ trust account was with Wells Fargo. In March 2000, he closed the Wells Fargo account and opened a Key Bank account. In November 2000, he opened a First Mutual account, but did not close the Key Bank account until March 2001.
The auditor found that the manual check register for the Wells Fargo account was missing some transactions, manual deposit books were missing some deposit slips, and manual check registers and deposit books were not reconciled to monthly bank statements or client ledgers. Mr. Jones’ bookkeeper maintained a check register in QuickBooks; however, no client accounts were maintained in the QuickBooks records, thus Mr. Jones was unable to produce client ledgers. The QuickBooks registers were not reconciled to the bank statements until the end of 2000, and because of undetected errors, the QuickBooks registers and the manual registers did not agree.
Client ledgers were kept in Timeslips; however, not all clients were included. The Timeslips system was not reconciled to either the manual check register or the QuickBooks register. Mr. Jones used Timeslips to estimate client balances prior to disbursements by manually comparing the most recent Timeslips billing with the manual check register and deposit books, which resulted in disbursing more funds than some clients had. Statements for the accounts were maintained but were not used to reconcile the accounts.
This recordkeeping system resulted in trust account shortages without Mr. Jones’ knowledge. As of February 2001, the account balance was $3,351.45 less than it should have been, a shortage that had developed over a period of time. The auditor could not specifically identify the transactions that caused the shortage. Mr. Jones learned of the shortage from the overdraft notice; however, he was unable to determine the exact amount. After the auditor’s determination, Mr. Jones restored the shortage in February 2001.
Mr. Jones’ conduct violated RPCs 1.14(a), requiring lawyers to keep client funds in a trust account; and 1.14(b)(3), requiring lawyers to maintain complete records of client funds in their possession.
Randy Beitel represented the Bar Association. Kurt Bulmer represented Mr. Jones.
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