Estate Planner’s Disbarment Urged After She Marries Elderly Client and Keeps His Money

Linda Nell Lowney became romantically involved with Thor Tollefsen, her estate planning client of several years, in 2005 when she was 54 and he was 84. In August of that same year, Thor transferred $340,000 to Linda with the expectation that she would use the money to pay for his care and health costs.The following year, when Thor was suffering from emphysema and terminal cancer, he and Linda married under a confidential marriage license that stated the two were living together though they were not. Less than a year later, Thor complained to relatives that Linda was not caring for him as she had promised and went to live in a senior care facility. Thor died in early 2007.

Following Thor’s death, his relatives living in Norway discovered that Linda held the remainder of the $340,000 Thor had transferred to her in 2005. Linda claimed the money was given to her as gift by Thor as her boyfriend, not as her client.

According to the State Bar of California review department opinion, Linda had been entrusted with the funds as a fiduciary and she had committed an act of moral turpitude by misappropriating the money. The review department held that Linda should be disbarred because she “took financial advantage of a sick, elderly client—conduct the hearing judge rightly called ‘heartless and egregious.’”

See Martha Neil, Disbarment Urged for Estate Planning Lawyer Who Married Elderly Client and Kept His Money, ABA Journal, Apr. 10, 2012.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.