The Washington State Supreme Court ruled on March 5, 2026, to sustain the disbarment of attorney Stephen Kenneth Monro. In a 56-page decision written by Justice Mary Yu, the court detailed a multi-year scheme in which Monro defrauded vulnerable clients, charged excessive rates, and repeatedly misled the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. The ruling confirmed that Monro violated professional standards on 14 separate counts.
The financial irregularities first surfaced in December 2016 when KeyBank reported that Monro’s client trust account had fallen into overdraft. Monro initially attributed the discrepancy to a ransomware incident that had encrypted his firm’s digital files that same month. However, investigators determined that the lawyer had been diverting client funds well before the cyberattack. Records showed that between January 2015 and January 2017, Monro’s general accounts lacked sufficient liquidity to cover the amounts he had improperly withdrawn from trust on any given day. When the Office of Disciplinary Counsel first inquired about the overdraft, Monro’s legal representative falsely claimed the issue was a simple timing error in deposit processing.
One of the most significant instances of misconduct involved the estate of a minor victim identified as “JK.” The child, who had special needs and was under dependent care, was the sole heir to a parent killed in a car accident. Prior to Monro’s involvement, the insurance company of the at-fault driver, Allstate, had offered a settlement equal to the policy limit of $100,000. Monro accepted the case on a contingency basis. Upon receiving the settlement, he generated more than $56,000 in unverified hourly billing for investigation work for which he provided no documentation. Consequently, he distributed $107,580 to his firm and his son, leaving the estate with no remaining funds for the child. Only after the disciplinary investigation began did Monro acknowledge that his fee was unfair and subsequently pay the child the $72,550 that had been withheld.
In other matters, including workers’ compensation and personal injury claims, Monro engaged in documentation fraud. In the case of a client known as “SA,” Monro collected $164,882.30 in fees from a settlement, an amount approximately $50,000 higher than what was stipulated in their agreement. To obscure the true cost, he presented the client only with the second page of the settlement paperwork for signature, hiding the first page which outlined the inflated fee. Additionally, either Monro or a member of his office forged the client’s initials on a fabricated fee agreement and submitted this false document to the Department of Labor and Industries. When disciplinary investigators requested the case files, Monro provided the fraudulent records and testified under oath that they were accurate.
In a separate instance, Monro withheld more than $61,000 belonging to the Department of Labor and Industries from a client’s settlement. He utilized these funds to cover payments for other unrelated clients and personal expenditures before ultimately issuing a bounced check to the state. Throughout the disciplinary proceedings, Monro contested the recommendation for disbarment, arguing that the “clear preponderance of the evidence” standard applied in attorney discipline cases infringed upon his constitutional right to due process.
The state’s highest court upheld the decision to remove the attorney from the bar, dismissing his final legal arguments. In the written ruling, Justice Yu clarified that funds held in a professional trust account cannot serve as a source for covering an individual’s business overhead or private spending.
The panel determined that the lawyer’s actions—specifically the diversion of client money, the creation of false records, and the repeated deceptions presented to investigators—constituted a permanent breach of the confidence placed in legal practitioners. Consequently, the justices ruled that removing his license to practice was the only penalty that matched the severity of the misconduct.
For the clients who had placed their trust in the attorney, the ruling provides a definitive resolution. The decision bars the former lawyer from practicing law anywhere within Washington State.