Smuckler

As indicated by the numbers accompanying the title hereof, two proceedings against the petitioner were presented before two different local administrative committees of The State Bar, the first terminating in a recommendation by" committee number three that petitioner be suspended for a period of one year, which was reduced by the board.of governors to a six months’ period, and the second resulting in a recommendation by committee number nine that he be suspended for a period of two years to run consecutively with any other suspension, which latter recommendation was approved by the board of governors. The charges grow out of similar transactions and the response of petitioner, as well as his version of the attending circumstances is so nearly the same in each case that we have deemed it appropriate to consider the two causes together.

In the first proceeding the charges were that petitioner had violated rule 9 of the Rules of Professional Conduct in two particulars as follows: (1) commingling money belonging to his client with his own funds, and (2) failing to promptly report to his client the receipt of money belonging to him. The second charges the receipt of money by…