Supreme Court panel probes administrator, lawyer in Austintown

Staff report

Austintown

Township Administrator Michael Dockry is under review by the Supreme Court of Ohio’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline, accused of not following proper bookkeeping procedures for his private law practice.

Dockry attended a disciplinary hearing on the matter on Thursday in Columbus before the board, according to court documents. The complaint was brought by Jonathan Coughlan, disciplinary counsel of the supreme court.

The board hadn’t made a ruling on Dockry’s case as of Friday afternoon, and Dockry didn’t return calls for comment.

Dockry, who has had a law license in Ohio since 1982, is accused of using his practice’s bank account — called an Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Account — to deposit and withdraw personal funds between 2007 and 2010, according to a complaint filed in April.

The complaint stated that he used the IOLTA account to pay for several personal and business expenses, including monthly office rental payments to suspended attorney and former Austintown Trustee Warren “Bo” Pritchard; and payments to One Communications for telephone services to his law office. He also deposited money from his personal checking account.

Dockry, who practices in the areas of eviction law, probate law, estate planning and property transfers, said during a December 2010 deposition that he had “always kept personal funds along with client funds” in his IOLTA account.

“Typically 75 percent of the funds belonged to his clients,” according to the complaint.

Between February 2007 and early 2010, Dockry didn’t maintain ledgers of client funds contained in that account, which is required by Ohio’s Rules of Professional Conduct, the document said.

“Specifically, [Dockry] did not maintain client ledgers with which to perform his reconciliations and when the IOLTA bank statements reflected different balances than his check register he simply adjusted the register ... Without determining the cause of the discrepancies.”

Austintown Trustee David Ditzler said Dockry was forthcoming with the board when the inquiry into his practice began last year.

“Mike talked to us about this over a year ago, and it was a matter of his bookkeeping” Ditzler said. “He wasn’t doing it properly from a procedural standpoint.”

Ditzler said the board will wait until the case in resolved in Columbus and discuss whether further action by the township is needed.

“Obviously I think the board will look at it when it’s all said and done and see if it warrants anything on the township side,” he said. “We’re satisfied to this point that he hasn’t done anything criminal ... It seems to be a procedural problem.”