Failures, Thefts and Lies, Lies, Lies: 4 Orange County Lawyers Are Disbarred


We recently wrote about the State Bar of California disbarring Irvine’s most famous, cuckold, drug-planting attorney.

But it turns out Kent Wycliffe Easter did not ride the Disbarment Train alone. The state bar also recently disbarred:

Michael Lee Goolsby, a 50-year-old Corona del Mar business lawyer who failed to comply with two earlier disciplinary probations, according to the state bar. He had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in violation of another jurisdiction’s regulations and collected illegal fees in two separate cases. Then he failed to comply with conditions of his probations, including making restitution, completing ethics courses and submitting required progress reports to the state bar.

Bruce Howard Haglund, 66, of Irvine, is a corporate lawyer who was involved in a fraudulent bank investment schemes that raised more than $11 million from dupes. As the escrow attorney for a trust account in one scam, Haglund told investors he was depositing more than $6 million into a client trust account before the money would be used to purchase high-yield securities, according to the state bar, which adds he instead wired the money into his and his partners bank accounts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the earlier decision of a federal district court: that Haglund and his partners had to cough up $6.7 million and Haglund also had to pay another $6.7 million civil penalty.

David Allen Hiersekorn, a 48-year-old Placentia estate planning lawyer, misappropriated more than $210,000 from a living trust he was hired to oversee, according to the state bar. Hiersekorn did not even participate in the prosecution against his law license, the bar adds.

Thomas Osmonde Russell III, 66, of Huntington Beach, mishandled $31,500 he was supposed to hold in escrow, according to the state bar, which adds the real estate lawyer failed to maintain client funds in a trust account, breached his fiduciary duty and commingled funds. The bar adds that Russell lied when he claimed he never got a notice to appear at a contempt hearing that he skipped.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *