It Wasn't Me, Your Honor, It Was My Midlife Crisis

Midlife crisis takes the blame for a lot of bad behavior -- infidelity, substance abuse, and Porsche purchases lead the list. Now add "lawyers stealing from clients." The AP reports:

Former state bar president Fred Ury, who serves on (the Connecticut) bar association's Task Force on Attorney Client Funds, and Mark Dubois, state Judicial Branch Chief Disciplinary Counsel, have been trying to figure out why as much as $20 million in client funds have been misappropriated statewide over the past three years.

Ury and Dubois said they see a pattern. They call it "the middle-aged white guy scenario" because many of the 20 or so lawyers who have been accused of bilking clients fit that description.

"At that time in their careers, they have access to more money and people tend to unravel in mid-life crisis," Dubois said. "The kids have gone to college and left home, sometimes there is divorce or some other family tension and usually there is some form of addictive behavior like gambling, alcohol, drugs or sex."

So -- we say with tongue firmly in cheek -- when you place funds in an attorney's trust, be sure they're either just starting out, or just about to retire. Stay away from the midcareer ones!

More seriously, it's LifeTwo's position that midlife crisis is a too-convenient catchall for behavior that can occur during any stage of life. The forty-five year old lawyer who dips into a clients funds may well have done the same thing at twenty-five -- if he or she had access to the money.

Don't blame their age -- blame their character.