Iowa’s Attorney Ad Disbarment Case Makes NOBC’s Case of the Month

Posted by Alan Childress
Previously Mike Frisch had posted (and linked) here on the Iowa Supreme Court’s opinion disbarring the anything-for-an-ad attorney Dennis Bjorklund.  And the case made ‘Case of the Month’ status at the National Organization of Bar Counsel.  It is reported here from NOBC with details and clever commentary showing that the dagger to his license was the material misrepresentations he apparently made during the bar discipline process for the ad (which he claimed was published by a third party without consent).  A taste:  “Evidence was, however, submitted at the disciplinary hearing that the publisher had a telephone number that was, coincidentally, the same as Bjorklund’s office telephone, save for the last two digits.”

Bjorklund’s elaborate Rube Goldberg machinery to hide the source of advertising and allow him plausible {?} deniability is both comic and tragic:  When will candidates for the bar and members under investigation get that lack of candor and cooperation with the bar is often worse than the underlying charge?  As Mike wrote about misleading testimony in the prior bar investigation, “that misconduct should invariably result in severe discipline, as it demonstrates present unfitness to practice law.” 

In Bjorklund’s long history with the bar discipline process, the Iowa Supreme Court at most reprimanded him for the advertising infractions.  Catching him lying about the ads, and avoiding service of process from the bar by calling himself ‘Jake’ and outrunning the server (save for a shoe he lost in the chase), meant disbarment.  Doh!