On Friday, June 6, the Presiding Disciplinary Judge of the Supreme Court of Colorado publicly censured attorney William Gibson Dornan IV, registration number 35470, following a disciplinary stipulation. The censure is effective immediately and stems from Dornan’s handling of a dual representation case that raised serious ethical concerns.
The case is entitled “People v. William Gibson Dornan IV,” with case number 25PDJ40.
In March 2021, Dornan began representing a client regarding a trust and simultaneously agreed to aid the client’s father in an estate planning matter. This included creating a beneficiary deed for the father’s home, which stipulated that the son would inherit the property upon the father’s death. However, Dornan failed to secure informed consent from either party concerning potential conflicts of interest arising from this dual representation.
Subsequent events escalated the situation when the client discharged his father from a rehabilitation center. Shortly after, the father was hospitalized due to a fall at home. During this period, an investigator from the Department of Adult Protective Services (APS) reached out to Dornan to inquire about the client’s capability to provide adequate care for his father. The client then requested Dornan’s representation in the APS investigation, leading to an engagement letter executed by a colleague in Dornan’s firm in September 2021.
APS concluded its investigation without further action by early October 2021. A week later, the father signed a power of attorney appointing his son as his attorney-in-fact, after Dornan and another lawyer from his firm confirmed the father’s testamentary capacity. In December 2021, the client fired Dornan on his own behalf and on his father’s behalf. Dornan never confirmed the termination with the father.
The actions taken by Dornan were found to be in violation of Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct (Colo. RPC) 1.7(a)(2), which prohibits lawyers from representing clients when a concurrent conflict of interest exists.
According to Avvo, Mr. Dornan is an estate planning lawyer in Denver, CO. He acquired his law license in Colorado in 2004.
A copy of the original filing can be found here.
