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Fired California bar govt director ought to get 30-day suspension, panel says, citing ‘responsibility to be truthful’
By Debra Cassens Weiss
July 8, 2025, 9:22 am CDT
Then-State Sen. Joseph Dunn of California at a listening to on the California State Capitol in Sacramento on March 30, 2005. Dunn was the State Bar of California’s govt director between 2010 and 2014. (Photograph by Wealthy Pedroncelli/The Related Press)
The previous govt director of the State Bar of California ought to obtain a brief suspension for misrepresentations that he made to the state bar’s board of trustees about funding for a visit to Mongolia, in accordance with a evaluation panel of the State Bar Court docket of California.
Joseph Dunn, the state bar’s govt director between 2010 and 2014, needs to be positioned on probationary standing for one yr, and he needs to be suspended from regulation follow for the primary 30 days of the probation interval, in accordance with the evaluation division of the State Bar Court docket of California.
Reuters and Regulation.com have protection of the July 2 suggestion.
Dunn had wrongly informed trustees that no state bar funds could be used to fund a visit to Mongolia to assist reform its authorized system, a listening to decide had concluded. Dunn was fired in November 2014 after the bar spent greater than $7,000 on the journey, $5,000 of which was repaid by the now-collapsed Girardi Keese regulation agency, in accordance with an inside report and the evaluation division’s resolution.
The appeals panel affirmed the listening to decide’s discovering that Dunn was liable for two acts of “ethical turpitude” however discovered that her suggestion for a one-year stayed suspension wasn’t sufficient.
“We decide {that a} 30-day precise suspension is the suitable self-discipline on this matter,” the evaluation division mentioned. “Dunn’s misconduct is particularly regarding given his responsibility to be truthful not simply as an legal professional however as an govt with fiduciary obligations over an company that regulates the authorized occupation.”
The evaluation division refused, nevertheless, to reinstate counts tossed by the listening to decide alleging that Dunn misled the board of trustees when he mentioned there was no recognized opposition to a state invoice that may have allowed state bar civil lawsuits in opposition to individuals who follow regulation and not using a license, in accordance with Courthouse Information Service.
The panel additionally famous components in mitigation, together with Dunn’s appreciable variety of years as a licensed legal professional with out self-discipline and his “extraordinary good character,” as affirmed by seven witnesses. Dunn was licensed to follow regulation in 1986.
Dunn is represented by Alan Greenberg of Greenberg Gross. He informed Reuters that the “baseless resolution” will likely be appealed, and the ethics costs had been retaliation for Dunn’s efforts to “rid the bar of its entrenched and dysfunctional bureaucrats.”
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