James Crump Removed

James T. Crump, a Rolla, Missouri municipal judge who also maintained a private law practice, was disbarred by the Missouri Supreme Court on May 14, 2024, for mismanaging two clients' trusts as well as his own IOLTA trust account. The court found Crump loaned himself $42,000 from a trust in May 2017 to pay his law firm's federal payroll taxes, then used trust money again in December 2017 for the same purpose.

When he later sent the trust beneficiaries letters purporting to list all outstanding loans against the trusts, he omitted the loans he had made to himself. The Missouri Supreme Court found Crump violated multiple rules of professional conduct, including those governing conflicts of interest, safekeeping client property, and dishonesty, and held that "misappropriation of client funds is a grave matter" warranting disbarment absent compelling mitigating factors, which the court found were not present here.