Closure Alert

June 30, 2023

Virginia State Bar Clients’ Protection Fund Board Pays $177,635.76 on Thirteen Petitions

The Virginia State Bar Clients’ Protection Fund Board authorized payments totaling $177,635.76 in reimbursement to petitioners regarding nine Virginia attorneys at its April 28, 2023, meeting.

In the largest single award of the meeting, the board approved a payment of $65,192, to the beneficiary of an estate of which Richard Gibson Wohltman was a co-executor. The Commissioner of Accounts for Fairfax County had earlier ordered that the bond covering Wohltman be forfeited in the amount of $65,192. The board found that Wohltman had committed dishonest conduct in theft, conversion, embezzlement and/or withholding money from its rightful owner, the estate. The board was of the opinion that Wohltman did not perform the work for which he billed the estate. Wohltman resigned from practice in October 2019.

The board approved a payment of $40,000 to a former client of David Brooks Hundley on the basis that Hundley embezzled the proceeds from two settlement checks he received for the client in a personal injury matter. The board also found that Hundley did not inform the client of his receipt of the funds. Hundley’s license was revoked in August 2020 by consent for misconduct in similar matters.

The board approved payments of $4,000, $10,000, $3,000, and $5,000 to four former clients of Brittani Nata’lita Baldwin of Williamsburg for failing to perform all the work for which she was paid in divorce cases. Baldwin’s license was suspended based on impairment on February 6, 2023.

Five former clients (two married couples and a single client) of David Gary Hoffman received payments of $8,615, $13,029, and $18,899 as reimbursement for fees they paid Hoffman for future estate administration services which Hoffman has not and will not perform. Hoffman’s license was revoked in December 2021 for similar actions. The claims are listed as three entries in the chart below because the payments in two of the claims were split between the husband and wife who submitted each claim.

The board approved two claims for $1,750 each as reimbursement to former clients of Charles James Swedish in criminal matters. The board found that Swedish performed more than insignificant legal services, but not all the services, that the fees should have covered, allowing the board to reimburse half of what each petitioner requested. Swedish died in March 2022.

A former client of Susan Leslie Fraser of Warrenton was awarded $5,900, half the amount requested. because the board found that Fraser had performed more than insignificant legal services, but not all the services she was hired to do in two separate matters involving divorce and custody and visitation. Fraser received a public reprimand in 2021, and subsequently resigned from the practice law.

A petitioner recovered $500, representing fees paid to Stephen Joseph Sheehy III of Fairfax to file an application to restore the client’s driver’s license. The board’s investigation showed that Sheehey died before he could perform the work in the matter. Sheehy died in December 2021.

A chart of the amounts paid as a result of the meeting follows. The board delays the release of the final chart, as the awards given to new petitioners are subject to a 30-day appeal period.

The Clients’ Protection Fund was created by the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1976 to reimburse persons who suffer a quantifiable financial loss because of dishonest conduct by a Virginia lawyer whose law license has been suspended or revoked for disciplinary reasons, or who has died and did not properly maintain client funds. The fund is not taxpayer funded but is supported by Virginia lawyers who pay an annual fee of $5. Payments from the Clients’ Protection Fund are discretionary and are not a matter of right. 

If you have any questions, you may contact Vivian R. Byrd, administrator to Clients’ Protection Fund by email at (804) 775-0572.