Committee on Professional Ethics & Conduct of the Iowa State Bar Ass'n v. Patterson

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

This is a disciplinary proceeding against an attorney, based on a serious misdemean- or conviction, “assault without intent to inflict serious injury but causing bodily injury contrary to ... section 708.2(2) of the Iowa Code.” Although respondent Stanford J. Patterson entered an “Alford”-type guilty plea to this offense in Black Hawk County, there is little dispute concerning the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Respondent is a forty-nine-year-old solo practioner in Waterloo. In the fall of 1983 he met Debra Herman, age twenty-nine, when they both enrolled in…