Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom was the best-known lawyer to receive a disciplinary slap today from the Minnesota Supreme Court. But he had company: three other attorneys were “publicly reprimanded” and one other, Albert Isiaka Usumanu, was suspended from practice for 30 days, according to the court’s Thursday opinions. The links for each lawyer typically give only a brief summary of the issue, details of the discipline and the process. For a fuller explanation of how disciplined lawyers got in trouble, you’ll need to check out the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, the agency that regulates attorneys in Minnesota and builds the disciplinary case that’s usually approved by the high court.

Here’s the summary:

The Director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility has filed a petition for disciplinary action alleging that respondent Albert Isiaka Usumanu committed professional misconduct warranting public discipline, namely, commingling personal and client funds in a trust account, maintaining personal funds in his trust account while his obligations to third parties were unsatisfied, failing to maintain proper books and records, and failing to cooperate with the disciplinary investigation, in violation of Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 1.15 (as interpreted by Appendix 1), 8.1(b), and 8.4(c) and (d), and Rule 25, Rules on Lawyers Professional Responsibility (RLPR).

I wanted to know more about Mr. Usumanu’s case, so I put his name in the public discipline search. I clicked on his name, and then the case number. That brought up the Supreme Court order, the same document linked off the Supreme Court web site. But this one has two pink links at the top: “View petition” and “View stipulation.” The petition fills in the details:

Usumanu practices in Minneapolis and got his license in 1994. Since then, he has had four “admonitions,” less severe disciplinary actions, from the director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, for failing to notify an immigration tribunal of his change of address, an action that led to his client being deported; twice for failing to show up for a hearing; and for failing to follow up after a hearing and to communicate with his client.

The most recent disciplinary action involved the use of a trust account for personal transactions. It happened even after an investigation into the case began in July 2007. He told the lawyers’ office that he had started putting his earned income in the trust account because “he did not approve of the way his wife paid their bills.” The lawyers’ office spent about a year badgering Usumanu to turn over financial records that would show how the trust money was managed. In the end, the Supreme Court’s disciplinary action against Usumanu came two years after the investigation began. The penalty order, signed by Associate Justice Alan Page: 30 day license suspension, two years of supervised probation, $900 in court costs and a requirement that Usumanu complete the “professional responsibility” portion of the bar exam within the next year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Public records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.