Oak View attorney James Andre Boles received a stayed suspension for one year and placed on two years' probation after he allegedly abandoned two clients in Nevada in 2011, for which he was disciplined in that state, according to a recent California State Bar filing.
Boles was suspended practicing law for the first 60 days of his probation, according to the 21-page decision filed June 14 by the California State Bar. The decision did not recommended Boles be ordered to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) because he previously had been ordered to do so.
Boles has one prior record of discipline before the California State Bar, according to the decision. In November 2015, Boles was suspended for 30 days and ordered to take the MPRE, in addition to two years’ probation, according to a California State Bar filing at the time. Boles also was warned about a one-year suspension should he fail to comply with the terms of the disciplinary probation.
Boles was admitted to the bar in California on Aug. 21, 1989, according to his profile at the state bar website.
On March 21, 2014, the Supreme Court of Nevada issued a disciplinary order suspending Boles for two years after ruling he'd committed professional misconduct. That suspension was to run consecutively to a one-year suspension imposed the year prior over a separate matter.
In the 2014 suspension, Boles was disciplined in Nevada for alleged misrepresentation of three former clients and conduct before a tribunal, according to that disciplinary order. The allegations in that order included sanctions against Boles and a former client for allegedly failing to satisfy discovery requests and orders, inadequate communication with opposing counsel and making misrepresentations to the tribunal.
The sanction order in the 2014 case referred Boles' conduct to the Nevada State Bar.
In the 2013 suspension, Boles reportedly suffered from an undisclosed medical condition in 2011 that forced him to into self-imposed indefinite medical leave but he failed to communicate that fact, as well as case status, with two clients he was representing at the time.
The California State Bar filed a notice of disciplinary charges in December 2016.