David Chipman Venie was admitted to the California Bar 8th December 1999, but has since been disbarred. David graduated from University of Virginia SOL.

Lawyer Information

NameDavid Chipman Venie
First Admitted8 December 1999 (24 years, 4 months ago)
StatusDisbarred
Bar Number204954

Contact

Current Email[email protected]
Phone Number(505) 766-9000
Fax Number(505) 766-9001

Schools

Law SchoolUniversity of Virginia SOL (Charlottesville VA)
Undergraduate SchoolVirginia Tech Inst (Blacksburg VA)

Address

Current Address2615 Corte Castellon SE
Rio Rancho, NM 87124-8845
Map
Previous AddressFreedom Law Center
833 Lomas Blvd NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102

History

17 March 2019Disbarred (5 years, 1 month ago)
Disbarment 17-J-04121
20 October 2018Not eligible to practice law in CA (5 years, 6 months ago)
Ordered inactive 17-J-04121
5 May 2018Not eligible to practice law in CA (5 years, 11 months ago)
Ordered inactive 17-J-04121
6 March 2018Disciplinary charges filed in State Bar Court 17-J-04121 (6 years, 1 month ago)
1 February 2015Inactive (9 years, 2 months ago)
9 February 2013Active (11 years, 2 months ago)
9 August 2012Not eligible to practice law in CA (11 years, 8 months ago)
Discipline w/actual suspension 11-J-18569
24 February 2011Active (13 years, 2 months ago)
26 November 2010Not eligible to practice law in CA (13 years, 5 months ago)
Discipline w/actual suspension 08-O-11949
8 December 1999Admitted to the State Bar of California (24 years, 4 months ago)

Discipline Summaries

August 9, 2012

DAVID CHIPMAN VENIE, 40, of Albuquerque, N.M., was suspended for two years, stayed, placed on two years of probation with a six-month actual suspension and he was ordered to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court. The order took effect Aug. 9, 2012.

Venie was suspended for six months from practicing in federal court in New Mexico and was placed on a year of probation. He stipulated that he violated the court’s order by asking questions during the examination of a witness regarding mandatory minimum penalties and sentencing and by making speaking objections three times in the presence of the jury.

He was disciplined in California in 2010 for mailing misleading advertising to inmates and making misrepresentations to gain employment. In mitigation, he cooperated with the bar’s investigation.

November 26, 2010

Soliciting inmate business leads to suspension

A criminal defense attorney who ignored written warnings to not mail solicitation letters to inmates of San Diego County detention centers probably should have listened. Instead, as a result of his two-year campaign to attract inmate business, DAVID CHIPMAN VENIE [#204954], 38, was slapped with a 90-day suspension and an order to take the professional responsibility exam. His letter writing met with little to no success and he closed his California practice and moved to New Mexico.

Venie mailed at least 23 solicitation letters to county jail inmates between 2005-2007, advertising his availability for hire. When the sheriff’s department, responsible for the county jails, did not deliver the early letters, Venie complained and threatened legal action, saying he knew of no law that prohibited inmates from receiving advertisements or solicitations. That prompted a letter from Sanford Toyen, an attorney for the sheriff’s department, who outlined department policy concerning mail and explained that all solicitation letters were discarded.

“This policy is one of necessity,” Toyen wrote, because “our jails would be flooded with such advertisements mailed to inmates and the distribution of important non-advertising mail would be significantly slowed.” Further, he wrote, “The only way such solicitations from an attorney would reach their intended recipients would be if the attorney were to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct by failing to label the envelopes containing such written communications with the appropriate notice that such communications are advertisements.”

Venie disregarded Toyen’s letter and sent more solicitations, prompting a second letter from Toyen that accused Venie of falsely labeling his letters as “legal mail.” Toyen warned Venie that further letters would result in a complaint to the State Bar. “I am urging you to discontinue this practice,” he wrote.

Venie believed Toyen’s analysis was wrong so he continued to send letters, although he modified their format and the descriptions of their content on the envelope. Some letters, for example, included a heading, “Re: Urgent news about your [specified charges].” Some stated: “Re: urgent newsletter” or if they were written in Spanish, “Re: urgente boletin.” He marked most as “legal mail” or “attorney mail,” or “attorney client mail,” omitted the word “advertisement” on the envelopes, and frequently wrote “open immediately” or “newsletter.” On the back of the envelopes, Venie often added the slogan, “Because your freedom is our business,” and also replaced his name with “Freedom Law Center.”

Venie testified before the State Bar Court that he had a single purpose in modifying the language on the envelopes: “I was trying to find some language that would get the letters delivered. And I knew that legal mail would get delivered, because Mr. Toyen told me that.”

A hearing judge found that Venie engaged in misleading advertising by sending letters that were intended to mislead. Further, because his actions were an effort to deceive sheriff’s deputies, they amounted to moral turpitude, the judge said, adding, “In a strictly economic decision, Venie chose dishonesty over his ethical obligations.”

The hearing judge recommended a 30-day suspension, but, arguing that he should be publicly reproved at most, Venie appealed. The State Bar Court’s review department not only upheld the lower court’s findings, it increased the suspension to 90 days and also ordered Venie to comply with rule 9.20 of the California Rules of Court. He must notify any clients or other interested parties that he was suspended Nov. 26, 2010.

The review department rejected Venie’s argument that his letter-writing was protected by the First Amendment and agreed with the hearing judge that his letters violated a professional rule governing employment solicitations. “Venie intentionally omitted the terms ‘advertisement’ or ‘solicitation’ from all of the envelopes because he knew with ‘100 percent’ certainty that using them would result in his letters being discarded,” wrote Judge Judith Epstein. “Instead, he devised various combinations of words to deceive the Sheriff’s Department into allowing the envelopes to reach the inmates.”

The panel agreed with the hearing judge that Venie’s actions amounted to moral turpitude because they were an intentional effort to deceive the sheriff’s department.

The panel rejected Venie’s claims that he made a good faith effort to seek guidance from a State Bar investigator about the format of his letters and that his many revisions were attempts to comply with professional rules. “Given that Venie’s primary goal in revising his communications was to evade detection by the Sheriff’s Department,” Epstein wrote, “we find that his efforts were dishonest and lacked good faith.”

Venie now lives in Albuquerque.