State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass'n v. Kouri
| Decision Date | 15 September 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 3734,3734 |
| Parties | STATE of Oklahoma ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION, Complainant, v. Dwight C. KOURI, Respondent. SCBD |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
The respondent lawyer was accused by the complainant Bar Association of professional misconduct sufficient to warrant professional discipline. The respondent subsequently submitted his resignation pending disciplinary proceedings to this Court. He moves to make the effective date of resignation retroactive to the date of his suspension for non-payment of dues, July 9, 1991. He also moves to withhold publication.
The Bar Association opposes making the date of resignation retroactive and withholding publication of the disposition of this case, but joins in the request of the respondent that this Court approve his resignation pending disciplinary proceedings. We accept the resignation of the respondent with the effective date of resignation being the date the resignation was signed by the respondent, July 9, 1992. We order that this opinion be published.
The respondent resigned as a shareholder from a law firm in Tulsa on May 22, 1990. As chairman of the real estate section of the firm, he had direct access to a bank account for use by the real estate section of the firm in conducting real estate closings. In Count I of the Complaint, filed January 10, 1991, the Bar Association alleges that the respondent was contacted in Nevada, after he had resigned, concerning a check written on the firm's real estate account for $2,000.00 in the respondent's handwriting and made out to C.A. Long. According to the Complaint, the respondent apologized for using the account and claimed that he had used the funds in handling a legal matter for his father, who was a client of the firm. He stated that the funds were advanced in order to facilitate closing of an oil and gas lease that involved his father. The respondent promised to contact his parents and see that the funds were replaced, and shortly thereafter, the firm received a check from the respondent's father with a note on the memo that it was a loan. The policy of the firm was that any amount over $100.00 was not to be advanced on behalf of a client without the concurrence of at least two partners.
Count II alleges that the law firm reviewed the entire bank account and determined that there were other irregularities. It states that the respondent wrote a check on the firm account in the amount of $6,800 to himself, endorsed the check, deposited it in his own account and that he caused the check stub to indicate that the check was made payable to the law firm to hide his taking the money. When contacted about it by a paralegal who noticed the discrepancy between the check stub and the check, the respondent claimed that the money was a loan by the firm and had been approved by the senior partner. The complainant alleges that this representation was false and made to conceal the respondent's misappropriation of funds from the firm.
Count III of the Complaint alleges that the law firm represented a client in a real estate transaction and was to receive a payment of $2,500.00 from the client for services rendered. The respondent handled the transaction for the firm on behalf of the client. The client paid the firm in two payments. The first payment was in the amount of $1,200.00 and was credited to the client's account. The second payment was made payable to the respondent in the amount of $1,300.00 and was intended as payment of the balance of the fee to the law firm. The Bar Association alleges that the respondent endorsed the check, deposited it into his own bank account and used the funds for personal purposes. He never credited the client's account for receipt of the second payment. He then approved writing off the outstanding $1,300.00 balance of the client's account receivable file.
Counts IV and V are contained in the Amended Complaint, filed November 1, 1991. Count IV alleges that the respondent delivered a check in the amount of $5,145.57, drawn on the law firm's client trust account and in the respondent's handwriting, to lawyers for Frontier Federal Savings & Loan as payment of the respondent's home mortgage arrearage. This was done without the knowledge of the law firm. Count V alleges that on the respondent's last day of employment, he wrote a check on the same trust account in the amount of $1,516.43 to the First National Bank of Broken Arrow for payment of a personal note he had due at the bank on that date. This was also done without the knowledge of the law firm.
On July 9, 1991, this Court ordered that the respondent be suspended from membership and the practice of law for failure to pay Bar Association dues. One year later the respondent filed with this Court his application for an order approving his resignation pending disciplinary proceedings. In that application the respondent asks that this Court make his resignation retroactive to the date of his suspension for failure to pay his dues. The respondent asserts that this Court has on prior occasions imposed discipline upon a lawyer...
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