The Board of Commissioners of the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection has awarded $15,880 to five victims of attorney theft.

Three former or suspended Ohio attorneys, one deceased attorney, and a permanently retired attorney were found to have misappropriated client funds or failed to return unearned fees, the fund’s board decided this week.

Delaware County
A former client of disbarred attorney Brian Wade Harter was reimbursed $300 as a result of Harter’s failure to provide the services requested. Harter was permanently disbarred from the practice of law in Ohio in September 2018.

Hamilton County
The board awarded reimbursement to former clients of two former Hamilton County attorneys.

A former client of deceased attorney Laurie Kaufman Ahlers was reimbursed $630 as a result of Ahlers’s failure to complete the services requested. Ahlers died in June 2016.

A former client of Andrea Lynn Reino was reimbursed $1,000 as a result of Reino’s failure to complete the services requested. Reino resigned from the practice of law in Ohio, with discipline pending, in December 2017.

Lucas County
A former client of suspended attorney Mark A. Deters was reimbursed $3,500 as a result of Deters’s failure to provide the services requested. Deters was suspended indefinitely from the practice of law in Ohio in December 2018.

Montgomery County
A former client of permanently retired attorney Christopher Michael Sove was reimbursed $10,450 as a result of Sove’s failure to refund an unearned fee. Sove permanently retired from the practice of law in Ohio in November 2018.

The Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection, formerly known as the Clients’ Security Fund, was created in 1985 by the Ohio Supreme Court to reimburse victims of attorney theft.