Virginia Bar president considers attorney trust audits
Headline Legal News
The president of the Virginia State Bar is proposing random audits of lawyer trust accounts.
Lawyers use trust accounts to temporarily hold real estate proceeds or retainers until they are disbursed to a third party or -- once a fee is earned -- to the lawyer.
It is a severe violation of professional conduct for a lawyer to mingle trust account money with personal funds or operating money.
But it does happen.
According to the state bar, a Virginia Beach attorney had his license revoked after he wrote 72 checks that he couldn't cover from 2002 to 2005. The checks totaled $3.3 million.
Bar president and Norfolk lawyer Howard Martin Junior says will make the audit proposal to the bar's executive committee next month. The American Bar Association recommends that every state conduct random audits to protect the public.
Related listings
-
Amazon cuts about 16,000 corporate jobs in the latest round of layoffs
Headline Legal News 01/27/2026Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the ecommerce company in three months.The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been red...
-
Minneapolis shooting scrambles Second Amendment politics for Trump
Headline Legal News 01/22/2026Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, a...
-
Maduro Pleads Not Guilty, Claims Capture in U.S. Drug Case
Headline Legal News 01/08/2026A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from p...
Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.