A Jacksonville attorney license was suspended about an audit that found more than $100,000 was sometimes missing from a trust fund for clients’ money.
“It is also my professional opinion that client funds were misappropriated,” Florida Bar Auditor Matthew Herdeker wrote in a statement. declaration which was attached to the Bar’s emergency request for the Florida Supreme Court to suspend James Alfred Stanley Jr.
The court approved the request on April 26 after the Bar warned that Stanley “caused, or is likely to cause, immediate and serious harm to customers or the public” by misusing money that should have been carefully protected.
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Stanleylawyer since 1989, did not respond to telephone and email messages seeking comment.
The Supreme Court told Stanley to stop taking new clients or lawsuits, close his existing law firm within a month, and stop doing anything that has to look out for another person’s financial interests.
The order is the result of a Bar investigation that began because a bank account for Stanley’s practice was overdrawn last fall.
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PNC Bank reported the overdraft to the Bar Association because the account was used to hold Stanley’s clients’ money in confidenceand in November the Bar Association asked Stanley, a lawyer with experience in administrative law and workers’ compensation, to explain the $1,046 shortfall.
In January, the Bar began a compliance audit and asked Stanley for a stack of records, but only got part of what it requested, the Bar told the Supreme Court in its stay petition. Then the Bar Association subpoenaed PNC records dating back to 2021 and Herdeker got to work.
“After reviewing PNC Bank records, the Bar auditor calculated a trust account shortage ranging from at least $30,131.46 to at least $107,630.00 from June 2023 through January,” the petition said.
This article originally appeared in the Florida Times-Union: Audit reports account ‘shortage’ of US$100,000; Jacksonville lawyer suspended
