SAN FRANCISCO – Rancho Mirage attorney Dorinda Jo Myers is on probation following a California Supreme Court order after she allegedly mishandled an elderly woman's investment dispute, according to a recent report issued by the State Bar of California and court documents.
The Supreme Court handed down a fully stayed one-year suspension and placed Myers on two years of conditional probation. The court also ordered Myers to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam and pay costs.
Myers' discipline was effective March 3, according to a report provided to the Northern California Record Friday by the state bar.
Myers was admitted to the bar in California on Oct. 13, 2008, according to her profile at the state bar website. Myers had no prior discipline before the state bar, according to her profile.
Allegations against Myers stem from her handling of her client's investment dispute with a Montana-based agricultural firm that allegedly failed to make a required promissory note payment in January 2014, according to the stipulation filed with the California State Bar Court in October. The client hired Myers in March of that year to file suit against the company and its president.
Myers filed the lawsuit the following July and then failed to respond to status updates into August of 2017, including two calls and two emails from the client's "subsequent attorney," the stipulation said. That same month, Myers "made extensive efforts to complete service of the lawsuit" and later represented the client's interests in a later bankruptcy case filed by the company's president, the stipulation said.
Meanwhile, the client's lawsuit had been dismissed for failure to prosecute and Myers was sanctioned by the court but she did not know she was sanctioned until this past September. She paid the sanction the following month, according to the stipulation.
Myers also allegedly failed to inform her client that she had closed her private practice in December 2015 and she also did not respond to or cooperate with an official state bar inquiries, according to the stipulation.