All In The Family

A conflict of interest has resulted in a partially-stayed suspension with three months served and probation, approved by the Colorado Presiding Disciplinary Judge

Beginning in 2022, Wells assisted a client to amend the client’s trust. The amendment named the client as primary trustee, Wells’s brother as successor trustee and power of attorney, and Wells’s brother’s employer, a bank, as secondary trustee. In February 2023, Wells drafted a restated trust for the client. The restated trust included Wells’s niece as a beneficiary and named an organization co-founded by Wells’s other brother as a potential beneficiary. Around this time, the relationship between the client and the trustee bank soured, and Wells drafted an amendment to the restated trust, removing the bank as a trustee.

Throughout the representation, Wells never advised his client in writing of the conflicts created by including his family members in the trust instruments. Nor did he obtain the client’s written informed consent to the conflicts. In addition, the client resided in Kansas, but Wells, who is not licensed to practice law in that state, took only preliminary steps to associate with a Kansas lawyer. Though the trust documents stated that the Kansas lawyer reviewed them, the lawyer in fact did not review the documents, and Wells did not consult with the lawyer about the matter. Even so, Wells wrote a letter to his client, misrepresenting that he performed work on her matter through an association with the Kansas lawyer. Around this time, Wells withdrew from the matter, assisted the client in finding new counsel, and refunded the client’s fee.

(Mike Frisch)