Former State Bar chief Joe Dunn lied about overseas travel expenses, judge rules

A judge has found that Joe Dunn, a lawyer and former Orange County politician, violated professional ethics when he lied about the use of funds for overseas travel while working as the executive director of the State Bar of California, the agency that regulates the practice of law in the Golden State.

In a 32-page decision, State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland wrote Wednesday that Dunn — once a close ally of now-disgraced lawyer Tom Girardi — had assured members of the State Bar’s governing board in 2013 that he would not use any of the agency’s money for a trip to Mongolia.

But after Dunn and one of his deputies, Tom Layton, another Girardi associate, traveled to Mongolia in early 2014, the bar paid out more than $6,000 to cover expenses. Roland concluded that the evidence presented at a three-day trial in April “unequivocally demonstrates” that Dunn’s “false and misleading statement to the Board was made knowingly.”

“[Dunn’s] misrepresentation to the Board amounts to a significant ethical violation,” Roland wrote in her decision. “Although his actions were not directly related to the practice of law, they were made in his crucial role as a leader of the organization that governs the practice of law in California, thereby undermining the integrity of the legal profession.”

Prosecutors with the State Bar had sought a 60-day suspension of Dunn’s law license, but Roland recommended one year of probation. Unless either side appeals, the decision will head to the state Supreme Court for approval.

The disciplinary proceeding was filed by the State Bar’s prosecutors in 2022 as the agency sought to move past the scandal surrounding Girardi and launched an investigation to uncover how Girardi corrupted the agency. Dunn was closely aligned with Girardi and flew on his private jet before, during and after he ran the State Bar. Layton, Dunn’s deputy who accompanied him on the Mongolia trip, was later found to have received more than $1 million in gifts and payments from Girardi.

In a statement, Stacia Laguna, the State Bar’s special deputy trial counsel, said, “We are satisfied with the findings of culpability.” Laguna said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to appeal the discipline that Roland recommended.

Dunn’s attorneys, Mark Geragos and Ellen Pansky, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The decision is a setback for Dunn, a former state senator from Santa Ana who once led the California Medical Assn., a powerful physician lobbying group, before taking the helm at the bar.

His four years as executive director came to a halt in 2014 when the bar’s board terminated him based on the findings of an investigation by the law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson. That probe determined he had misused funds and misled the board.

Dunn contested his firing and filed a wrongful termination suit against the State Bar, but an arbitrator in 2017 rejected his claims and found that the bar had committed no wrongdoing in ousting him.

After his stint at the bar, Dunn worked as an administrator and lecturer at UC Irvine School of Law. A spokesperson confirmed Friday that Dunn no longer is employed by the law school.

At the trial in April, several former board members testified that Dunn had assured them at a board meeting in late 2013 that the trip to Mongolia would not use bar funding.

“I don’t recall the exact words, but I do recall that in sum and substance he indicated that State Bar funds would not be used to pay for the trip to Mongolia,” said Miriam Krinsky, a former board member. Krinsky testified that she wouldn’t have approved using money for this trip, which was supposed to help Mongolian officials develop a system for regulating attorneys.

Dunn testified on his own behalf and denied making any presentation about the Mongolian trip expenses, and said, “I don’t believe that I raised an issue with the bar board that there would be bar funds used.”

But the judge wrote that his account was “contradictory, severely undermining his credibility,” and that his “account of events has shifted dramatically over time.” For example, in 2017 he testified that he did inform the board about the trip and that the bar funds would cover coach airfare.

As part of his defense, Dunn called several prominent members of the legal community, including UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and L. Song Richardson, former dean of UC Irvine School of Law.

Justifying the one-year probation term, Roland noted that Dunn had no prior record of discipline and highlighted that the witnesses from the wider legal community “consistently and uniformly testified to [Dunn’s] good character, praising his trustworthiness, integrity, and honesty.”