May 10, 2021 at 11:51 AM
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A lot changed in 2020, but when it comes to lawyering, it didn’t really slow the time-honored tradition of attorneys raiding client escrow funds as their own piggy banks. In fact, New York reports that while the total number of claims were down last year, the amount of pilfering actually went up. Hey, it’s a tough economy and there’s a whole bunch of money just sitting right there. What’s to stop a lawyer from using a smidgen to make ends meet except for a basic appreciation for legal ethics?
The Lawyers Fund for Client Protection, a state agency that compensates victims of crooked and extremely negligent attorneys, paid $3.4 million alone last year to victims whose attorneys who stole from real estate escrow accounts. That’s more than 40 percent of all the money the agency reimbursed, according to its most recent annual report.