A Tustin legal professional faces disbarment for allegedly misappropriating as much as $282 million from as many as 60,000 purchasers who employed him searching for debt aid, the State Bar of California stated.
Daniel Stephen March didn’t dispute 27 ethics prices of ethical turpitude, misappropriation, failure to keep up shopper funds in a belief account and others filed in opposition to him in Could in State Bar Court docket, which independently handles legal professional self-discipline instances.
“The extent of March’s misconduct and misappropriation of shopper funds is beautiful,” Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona stated in a State Bar launch Tuesday. “March fully betrayed his tasks as a lawyer and his sworn oath of service to his purchasers and to the career. Given the scope of his offenses, the simply end result on this case is disbarment.”
March operated a Tustin enterprise known as Litigation Observe Group that supplied debt aid providers to clients for a flat payment, paid in month-to-month installments, and supplied a refund if they may not ship. It filed for chapter in March 2023.
However based on chapter filings, as much as $282 million in superior payment income collected by March from as many as 60,000 purchasers between November 2019 and March 2023 have been lacking, leaving solely $1,500 in a JPMorgan Chase belief account and roughly unfavourable $1,000 in a Union Financial institution belief account. Attorneys are required to carry shopper charges in trusts till the lawyer completes the work promised, susceptible to self-discipline or disbarment.
Chapter filings for Litigation Observe Group confirmed that March made 20 separate deposits of purchasers’ month-to-month installment charges right into a belief account from March 2020 to September 2021 however then withdrew $78 million in shopper charges throughout that interval, the State Bar stated within the launch. The charges, a part of the $282 million whole, have been both by no means deposited right into a belief account or remained for under a day and have been wired into a private account, the grievance alleges.
Throughout chapter proceedings, March appeared to confess that his shopper’s cash had been mishandled, saying, “no cash, nothing was held on behalf of the shopper,” based on the State Bar Court docket grievance.
“You’re in the correct fingers in your journey to resolve your debt,” the Litigation Observe Group web site nonetheless reads. Google marked the enterprise as completely closed.
A separate grievance by the State Bar Court docket alleged that March didn’t distribute virtually $1.4 million in settlement funds meant for a shopper and allowed his worker Tony Diab, a disbarred legal professional, to handle the shopper funds. Diab was disbarred in 2019 after he was accused of mendacity to a shopper about a number of facets of his prison case and had wired into his private checking account $375,000 meant for his shopper’s termination settlement, based on State Bar Court docket data. Diab didn’t present as much as his trial, was positioned on default and was subsequently disbarred.
A federal case filed by an investor in Litigation Observe Group alleged that the enterprise abruptly stopped paying the investor in June 2022 and that Diab used March as a figurehead to follow regulation after dropping his personal license.
March was beforehand suspended from working towards regulation for 90 days in 2008 . He was placed on probation for a yr after failing to pay all of a shopper’s medical payments with settlement cash as agreed and mendacity about it to his shopper, then providing to settle the remainder of the payments so long as the shopper didn’t contact the State Bar to complain, a 2008 grievance alleges. He was required to jot down quarterly experiences, attend ethics faculty and move an expert accountability examination as a situation for his probation.
March didn’t reply to cellphone calls and voicemails Wednesday to his private or workplace quantity.
