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

HARRIS, Justice.

This attorney disciplinary case presents only the question of an appropriate sanction, and the answer is close to automatic. There is no place in our profession for lawyers who convert funds entrusted to them. It is almost axiomatic that we revoke licenses of lawyers who do so. The attorney involved here took client trust funds and converted them to his own use. We find no reason to depart from the policy demanding revocation.

Since his admission in 1968 respondent James L. Ottesen has practiced law in Scott County, since early 1990 as a sole practitioner. During a three-month…