Attorney Robert Adam Mintz of Leawood, Kansas, who in 2014 was ordered by a judge to pay the mother of a friend $300,000 after Mintz failed to tell police about his role in the friend's death, has been reinstated to practice law in Missouri following a recent order.
The Missouri State Supreme Court issued its brief order sustaining Mintz's petition for reinstatement as a member of the Missouri Bar in good standing after he'd been reciprocally suspended in Missouri in June 2014. Mintz had been suspended 32 months in Missouri after he was indefinitely suspended in Kansas following a February 2014 order handed down by the high court in that state.
The disciplinary administrator in the Kansas proceeding had recommended Mintz be disbarred, according to the Kansas Supreme Court's opinion that suspended Mintz.
Mintz was admitted to the bar in Missouri on April 19, 1991, according to his profile at the Missouri State Bar's website. He was admitted to the bar in Kansas Sept. 20, 1990, according to the Kansas Supreme Court's opinion.
In November 2014, a Clay County, Kansas judge ordered Mintz to pay the mother of Jennifer L. Arnett in a wrongful death lawsuit following Arnett's death Jan. 30, 2012. Mintz allegedly left the heavily intoxicated Arnett alone in her Kansas City apartment and later found her body after she died from a broken neck after she fell down a flight of stairs. Mintz did not immediately contact authorities or call the woman's family, according to news reports at the time that cited the lawsuit filed by her family.
Mintz attempted to cover up the events of that day, including that he and Arnett had been drinking together, although he knew Arnett was a recovering alcoholic who was trying to avoid alcohol, according to the same news reports.
"I have a number of personal regrets that I am going to have to live with or try to for the rest of my life," Mintz said during a hearing before the Kansas Supreme Court in December 2013, during which he apologized for his actions. "She needed strength, and I didn’t give it to her. The truth is that Jennifer was vulnerable and weak and I was too."