Fairlawn attorney ordered to pay $17,000 to clients for failing to provide legal services

A suspended attorney based in Fairlawn must reimburse eight former clients nearly $17,000 for failing to provide services they had paid him to complete.

The Board of Commissioners of the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection ordered Steven Scott Fannin to pay $17,022.10 in mid-September. He is one of six attorneys from six Ohio counties who must pay a total of $104,248.76 to 14 clients, Court News Ohio reported .

Fannin's law license was indefinitely suspended in April after 23 clients filed complaints against him with the Ohio Supreme Court's Board of Professional Conduct. These complaints took place between March 2021 and March 2022.

He accepted roughly $37,500 from 21 of those clients but failed to complete the work he was contracted to perform, according to the complaint.

The complaints cited his failure to file court documents, failure to appear in court, lying to clients about the progress of cases, not returning client money and ignoring clients trying to contact him.

He also failed to deposit much of the $37,500 into a separate bank account called Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account or, in some cases, deposited money directly into his operating accounts.

According to the American Bar Association , attorneys are required to hold client money in a bank account separate from business accounts.

Fannin was also temporarily suspended from practicing law in 2021 when administrative boxes, billing files and 1,100 files from 716 clients were found at an old office building and his family home, according to the complaint.

He was fined $30,791 for the improper handling of these files.

Bryce Buyakie covers courts and public safety for the Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at bbuyakie@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @bryce_buyakie.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Fairlawn attorney ordered to pay $17,000 to clients for failing to provide legal services