State Bar Court judge rules to disbar S.F. lawyer for taking funds

A State Bar Court judge has recommended that a San Francisco attorney be disbarred for taking $55,000 from the trust fund of a client who was in prison.

Michael Scott Keck removed the money to repay a debt to another client, lied to his imprisoned client and concealed his actions for four years, Judge Lucy Armendariz said in a ruling April 13. The bar suspended Keck from practice three days later.

Keck has practiced law since 1986 and had no previous record of misconduct.

The case stems from his representation of Harvey Hereford, an attorney who pleaded guilty in 2004 to manslaughter for a drunken-driving crash in Sonoma County that killed bicyclist Alan Liu and injured another cyclist, Jill Mason.

Keck was named trustee in 2006 of a $150,000 trust Hereford had created by selling his home to compensate his victims. In 2009, Armendariz said, Keck owed $55,000 to another client, whose funds he had mishandled, and wrote himself checks for $30,000 and $25,000 from the trust fund, without the permission of Hereford or Mason, a beneficiary of the trust.

After Hereford was released from prison in 2011, he asked why the trust account balance had dropped, and Keck led him to believe it was due to the nation’s 2008 financial crisis, Armendariz said.

She said the trust fund’s financial adviser learned about the removals in 2013, and Keck, who had previously repaid only $1,875 to the fund, paid Hereford the rest of the money after Hereford filed a complaint with the State Bar.

At the trial of the disciplinary charge in January, Armendariz said, Keck testified that the fund’s previous financial adviser had authorized him to borrow the $55,000. That testimony lacked credibility, the judge said, because an experienced attorney like Keck must have known that the adviser would not have had the authority to allow a loan from trust assets.

Keck “was dishonest, concealed material facts from Hereford and others, and acted in bad faith,” Armendariz said. She said misappropriating a client’s funds is grounds for disbarment despite Keck’s previous good record in his law practice.

Samuel Bellicini, Keck’s lawyer in the disciplinary case, declined to comment. Keck could appeal the ruling to a panel of the State Bar Court and then seek review from the state Supreme Court, which oversees the practice of law in California.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko