JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (St. Louis Record) — Attorney L. J. Buckner Jr. of Lenexa, Kansas, has been reciprocally disbarred following an Oct. 22 Missouri Supreme Court order after a similar discipline handed down in a split Kansas Supreme Court proceeding last summer.
The Missouri Supreme Court issued its order disbarring Buckner following a Chief Disciplinary Counsel motion for reciprocal discipline. The Missouri high court also ordered Buckner to pay all costs.
Buckner was disbarred in Kansas following an original proceeding in discipline issued in June by the Kansas Supreme Court. The Kansas high court disbarred Buckner after finding him in violation of professional conduct rules regarding communication, fees, safekeeping property, terminating representation, engaging in misconduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation. Buckner also was alleged to have failed to respond to a lawful demand for information from a disciplinary authority and to cooperate in a disciplinary investigation in Kansas.
The Kansas Supreme Court's decision to disbar Buckner was not unanimous.
"The majority of this court holds disbarment is the appropriate discipline," the Kansas Supreme Court said in its proceeding. "A minority of this court would impose indefinite suspension and require the respondent to undergo a reinstatement hearing under Supreme Court Rule 219 at which the respondent would be required to prove that full restitution has been provided to his clients and the Client Protection Fund as factually applicable."
Buckner, a commercial litigation and tort defense attorney who earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1993, was admitted to the bar in Missouri that same year, according to his profile at LawyerDB.com. Buckner was admitted to the bar in Kansas in 1994, according to the Kansas Supreme Court's proceeding.
Allegations against Buckner stem from his representation of two clients in a mortgage foreclosure action for which the clients hired him in February 2014, according to the Kansas Supreme Court's proceeding.