Timothy Dallinger, Esquire | NOMINATED

Cal­i­for­nia. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Tim­o­thy Dallinger [#100062], age 63, of Sher­man Oaks has been nom­i­nated by the State Bar of Cal­i­for­nia for induc­tion into the Evil Esquire Bar Asso­ci­a­tion as a senior, asso­ciate member.

On Decem­ber 28, 2007, Dallinger was sus­pended for four years, stayed, placed on five years of pro­ba­tion with a two-year actual sus­pen­sion and was ordered to make resti­tu­tion, prove his reha­bil­i­ta­tion, take the MPRE (the Multi-state Pro­fes­sional Respon­si­bil­ity Exam­i­na­tion) and com­ply with rule 9.20. i.e., inform his clients, oppos­ing coun­sel and inter­ested third par­ties of his suspension.

Here’s the text of the Cal­Bar’s nom­i­na­tion as pub­lished in the Cal­i­for­nia Bar Journal.

In 2002, he [Dallinger] was charged with numer­ous counts of mis­con­duct in eight mat­ters, includ­ing mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of client funds, com­min­gling, issu­ing checks against insuf­fi­cient funds and other trust account violations.

He admit­ted to mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing more than $220,000 from six clients.

In one mat­ter, for instance, he set­tled an insur­ance claim for $125,000 and deposited the set­tle­ment check in his trust account. Because the client already had paid about $140,000 in legal fees, Dallinger agreed to give him the entire set­tle­ment. How­ever, he mis­ap­pro­pri­ated the money.

When the IRS said the client owed more than $148,000, Dallinger wrote a check for $125,662, rep­re­sent­ing the set­tle­ment funds plus inter­est, against his gen­eral busi­ness account. It bounced.

In another mat­ter, he mis­ap­pro­pri­ated more than $35,000 from a client who pro­vided the money to post a bond for an appeal.

Accord­ing to the Bar, Dallinger made “sub­stan­tial resti­tu­tion” to his clients. We’re not sure what this means. Were they made whole? Did the IRS lock his client up? Was the other client able to post the bond for his / her appeal? Did Dallinger’s resti­tu­tion include dam­ages for the con­se­quences of his “misappropriations”?

Dallinger it seems has or had men­tal health issues and suc­cess­fully com­pleted the State Bar’s Alter­na­tive Dis­ci­pline Pro­gram for lawyers with addic­tion or men­tal health issues i.e., a “pro­gram” that uses money the State Bar of Cal­i­for­nia could use to assist vic­tims of lawyer mis­con­duct to instead assist lawyers to address their men­tal health or addic­tion issues. They’ve got to pro­tect the profession!

“Although such mis­con­duct is grounds for dis­bar­ment, the bar court found that Dallinger’s men­tal health issues were respon­si­ble for his mis­con­duct. In addi­tion, he had no record of dis­ci­pline in many years of prac­tice… As a result, the court rec­om­mended a dis­ci­pline ‘less than that war­ranted by the stan­dards in this matter’.”

Help Tim­o­thy become an EEBA mem­ber by assist­ing our esteemed Bored to assess his fit­ness by rat­ing his “evil­ity” and pro­vid­ing com­men­tary regard­ing the fore­go­ing and any evil or uneth­i­cal activ­i­ties he’s been involved in that are not known to the public.