Each time, several of his clients would give him hundreds of dollars, hoping he’d defend them in divorce proceedings. Each time, their lawyer disappeared without a trace, taking their money and running off, tracked down only by a Virginia State Bar investigator. Tuesday, the Bar Disciplinary Board revoked the practice license of Randall Campbell, whose Cave Spring law office has been abandoned; his phone number is disconnected.
“[Campbell] violated professional rules that govern diligence, communication, fees, safekeeping property… and misconduct,” said the clerk of the Board, Barbara Lanier, in a statement released to WDBJ7.
In an affidavit for the revocation of his license, which Campbell signed Monday, seven people filed complaints against him between 2010-11 for failing to even keep in touch after initial meetings and retaining. In one case, the client gave Campbell $500 to represent him in a divorce. The client then went months without hearing from Campbell, who sometime between 2011 and 2012 dissolved his office on Electric Road and left no forwarding address. The same story is repeated in six other complaints against Campbell. In another case, the client learned from a clerk that her divorce proceedings had never even been filed. In yet another, a client was asked by Campbell to come to his office. When she did, the door was locked and Campbell’s notary told her he was gone.
Only a Bar investigator could locate Campbell, who then confessed to the investigator that he had taken clients’ money, put it directly into his bank account, instead of a “trust” account. He was also aware of all of the complaints against him, seven in all.
Campbell, nor any of his former clients could be reached for comment, but by signing the consent order, Campbell “admits that the charges in the [order] are true.”
