The Arkansas Supreme Court has disbarred Don Jenkins, a former Crawford County Quorum Court member and ex-Van Buren city attorney.
He must pay more than $3,100 for court costs, based on an action brought by the court’s Committee on Professional Conduct, the justices decided Thursday.
Special Judge John Lineberger, who was appointed to hold the disbarment trial last year, stated that Jenkins - whose formal name in the case was Newton Donald Jenkins Jr. - noted that the committee had found him in violation of rules of conduct more than 20 times since 2003. The special judge also noted that Jenkins was taken before the professional conduct committee eight times. In four of those cases, he was suspended from practicing law.
“Jenkins started on a downhill slide in 2003, picked up steam in 2007 and then cast caution to the wind the last four years by blatantly flaunting the high ethical standards required of those privileged to practice law in this state,” Lineberger wrote in his Oct. 25 findings of fact and conclusions of law in the disbarment case.
Jenkins never responded to or participated in the disbarment case against him other than to object to the fact he was not served directly when a panel of the committee on professional conduct voted in December 2011 to initiate the disbarment proceedings, according to the supreme court’s per curiam order Thursday.
Lineberger wrote that Jenkins, who headed a law firm in Van Buren, appeared to have relocated to central California by April 2012, working for a company called Solid Networks Inc.
The company’s Internet site listed a Don Jenkins as the director of operations. A call left on Jenkins’ voice mail at the Solid Networks office was not returned Thursday. Phone numbers for Jenkins’ law office in Van Buren were disconnected.
Jenkins served four twoyear terms on the Crawford County Quorum Court from Jan. 1, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2008, according to the county clerk’s office. He representedDistrict 3, which is the southwest corner of the county comprising part of Van Buren and the Dora community.
In 2006, Jenkins was elected as Van Buren’s city attorney and served one four-year term, from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2010, according to the city clerk.
Cases that brought on the disbarment action, according to the professional conduct committee’s documents, included one in which Jenkins represented a couple in a 2009 federal bankruptcy case during which he filed inaccurate information and gave false and misleading testimony.
He also offered to file amended federal tax returns for them, which he prepared and the couple signed. He then failed to file them.
In a ruling last August, the professional conduct committee suspended his license for 24 months.
In a case filed against him before the committee in 2011, committee records showed, Jenkins had agreed to represent a man in a civil case in Pulaski County Circuit Court in November 2006. The client paid him a $500 fee up front.
But when the case came up for trial in January 2007, Jenkins had not notified the client of the trial date, and neither showed up. The judge awarded a $45,000 judgment against the client.
After the client threatened to bring a malpractice suit against him, Jenkins offered to represent the client for free in a federal bankruptcy case in an attempt to discharge the circuit court judgment against the client.
In bankruptcy filings, according to the committee’s records, Jenkins denied the client had a claim against him, which the professional conduct committee stated was false and that Jenkins knew to be false.
The bankruptcy judge ordered Jenkins removed from the case.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/31/2013