JEFFERSON CITY (St. Louis Record) — Sunrise Beach real estate attorney Gregory David Williams has been placed on a year of probation after an April 20 Missouri Supreme Court ruling following a decision by a disciplinary hearing panel.
The state high court handed down its order after finding that Williams violated a professional conduct rule that covers imputation of conflicts of interest.
"Upon consideration of these findings, previous decisions of this court, American Bar Association standards for imposing lawyer discipline and aggravating and mitigating circumstances, this court orders [Williams] be placed on probation for a period of one year from the date of this order," the court's order said. "The terms and conditions of probation shall be those attached to the disciplinary hearing panel decision filed herein."
Williams also was ordered to pay $1,500 to the court clerk for the Advisory Committee Fund, in addition to costs in the proceedings.
Williams was admitted to the bar in Missouri on Sept. 15, 1984, according to his profile at The Missouri Bar's website. Following his admission, Williams practiced law in Springfield until 1988 when he began to practice in the Lake of the Ozarks area, "most particularly in and around Sunrise Beach," said an office of disciplinary counsel informants brief filed with the court in May 2013.
In October 2013, Williams was reprimanded after a Missouri Supreme Court order. The reprimand followed the office of disciplinary counsel's brief that charged Williams with professional conduct rules violations in a fee agreement with a client, who was incarcerated at the time, in which a real estate deed of trust was used to secure the agreement. Williams took "a pecuniary interest in his client's property under terms that were not fair and reasonable to his client in order to financially benefit at the expense of his client," the brief said.
In a prior discipline, Williams was admonished in May 2001 for allegedly violating a conflict of interest rule in a single client matter, according to the office of disciplinary counsel May 2013 informant's brief.