Clifton Donaldson Blevins - #47481

This member is active and may practice law in California.

See below for more details.

Copies of official attorney discipline records are available upon request.

Explanation of common actions

Summaries from the California Bar Journal are based on discipline orders but are not the official records. Not all discipline actions have associated CBJ summaries. Copies of official attorney discipline records are available upon request.

March 5, 1998

CLIFTON DONALDSON BLEVINS [#47481], 56, of San Diego was suspended for 60 days, stayed, and placed on probation for 60 days, effective March 5, 1998. The period of his probation will run consecutive to a previous discipline order. He was ordered to pass the MPRE.

Blevins stipulated to failure to communicate and respond to reasonable status inquiries in a personal injury matter involving a client in New Jersey.

In aggravation, Blevins has a record of three prior discipline matters. He was publicly reproved in 1994, received a two-year stayed suspension with three years probation in 1995, and a probation revocation in 1997, along with a two-year stayed suspension with three years probation and a 90-day actual suspension.

March 21, 1997

The probation of CLIFTON DONALDSON BLEVINS [#47481], 55, of San Diego was revoked and he was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on three years of probation with an actual 90-day suspension, and was ordered to comply with rule 955 of the California Rules of Court. The order took effect March 21, 1997.

Blevins originally was disciplined in 1995 for four instances of failing to keep funds in his client trust account which were owed to his clients' physicians. The hearing judge, noting that Blevins' problems were caused by "technical ineptness rather than moral or ethical inadequacies," placed him on probation with conditions including quarterly reports by an accountant regarding Blevins' possession of client funds.

The State Bar moved to revoke Blevins' probation in November 1995 when it charged that the reports he submitted were not prepared by certified public accountants or otherwise did not comply with probationary requirements regarding reporting of trust funds. Blevins demanded a hearing and presented evidence that the person he hired to monitor his trust account was a CPA.

The bar court declined to revoke probation, finding that Blevins acted in good faith in attempting to comply with his probation.

Blevins then filed his January 1996 quarterly report more than two months late and did not file the April report.

Those violations led to the current discipline. Blevins "was certainly on notice [in November 1995] that he must conform with the State Bar's expectations," the court wrote. "Regardless, he failed thereafter to comply with the requirements that he file quarterly reports and provide reports by a certified public accountant or a public accountant attesting to his proper resolution of trust funds."