► Attorney Joan Carroll of Boston, MA; greedy loser Print E-mail
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Attorney Joan Carroll of Boston, MA; greedy loser

 
The Massachusetts Supreme Court presented Joan L. Carroll with a law license in 1961.
 
The Board of Bar Overseers found Joan guilty of the following misconduct.
  1. Engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice
  2. Engaged in a glaring conflict of interest
  3. Failed to decline representation when her financial interests conflicted with client’s interests
In one matter, Joan’s aunt consulted with her about her estate. Joan advised her aunt if she died without a will, all of her property would go her five heirs-at-law. Of course Joan was one of the five heirs-at-law. The aunt directed Joan to draft a will that left her house to a neighbor, and everything else to her nephew and niece who were not heirs-at-law.
 
Joan then prepared the will as directed by her aunt along with naming the aunt’s nephew as executor of the estate; however, the aunt never executed the will. Subsequently, the aunt opened a joint account at Hyde Park Savings Bank with her nephew. The aunt then directed Boston Five Cents Savings Bank to change the name on two accounts that were solely in her name to accounts identifying her as a “trustee” for her nephew.
 
Several months later, the aunt was hospitalized at Beth Israel Hospital. The aunt and her nephew discussed the need to continue to pay the expenses of the aunt’s house. The nephew then advised Joan about the accounts at Hyde Park and Boston Five. Joan advised that funds be withdrawn from Hyde Park to pay the expense of the aunt’s house.
 
Three weeks later, the nephew hired Joan to prepare a petition to have him and his mother, the aunt’s sister, appointed the aunt’s guardians. A month later, the nephew and his mother signed the guardianship petition that Joan prepared. Before Joan could file the guardianship petition, the aunt died.
 
Shortly after the aunt’s death, her nephew hired Joan to prepare a petition to have him appointed administrator of his aunt’s estate. Joan advised the nephew that she would also prepare a petition to have him appointed the special administrator for the estate.
 
When Joan agreed to represent the nephew, she failed to consider whether he was an appropriate person to act as an administrator of the estate given the estate’s potential claim to the joint and trust accounts. Joan also failed to appreciate that she was a likely witness to her aunt’s intentions regarding the bank accounts. Lastly, Joan failed to appreciate that her professional judgment would or might reasonably be affected by her own personal and financial interests as an heir-at-law.
 
Subsequently, the nephew fired Joan. Shortly after being fired, Joan had the chutzpah to hire counsel to petition the probate court to have her appointed special administrator and administrator of the aunt’s estate. Joan did so even though she was not a suitable person to be appointed to either position because she had a conflicting personal financial interest and because he would likely be a witness in the probate matter.
 
As a consequence of his misconduct, the apologists for Attorney Misfits sitting on the Board of Overseers punished Joan by gifting her with a complimentary reprimand.
 
As we speak (ca. December 2012) Joan practices at 101 Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
 

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