Attorney review board supports censure for lawyer who is also MTCA director

March 28, 2009 – After reviewing the findings of a hearing board last year, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission has affirmed its recommendation of censure for misconduct of Daniel Starr, a lawyer who is also on the board of directors of Marina Towers Condominium Association.

Starr, who specializes in landlord and tenant law, was charged with engaging in conflicts of interest and other misconduct while representing clients in eviction matters. He admitted some factual allegations, denied others, but denied all allegations of misconduct.

Both the hearing board and the review board found there was no conflict of interest but enough misconduct to call for a censure, which is similar to a reprimand. The decision of the review board was filed on March 17, 2009.

It is still just a recommendation and must be voted on by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Starr was unanimously approved on February 19 by the MTCA board to fill a seat left open by Sandra Lapping, who died on July 3, 2008.

In 2005, Starr was suspended for six months by the Illinois Supreme Court for his involvement in a fraudulent scheme to delay an eviction. He was not allowed to practice law during that time.

The more recent case dates back to April 2004, when Starr met with a man, Rufus Sparks, who asked Starr to represent him in a dispute with a mortgage company. He also wanted Starr to represent Tinika Sims, who he said was his girlfriend and lived with him at a house in Calumet City that the mortgage company wanted back. Starr did not actually meet with Sims, and she later denied being Sparks’s girlfriend.

Sparks was able to rent a vacant house to Sims for $1,500 per month – with an option to purchase the house – and a $5,000 down payment, despite not actually owning the house. He simply came across the vacant house in 2003, allegedly told Sims he was the owner, and got her to sign a lease agreement.

Sims eventually had to move out of the house but Starr was able to delay her eviction by claiming Sparks had not been properly served and the case needed to be re-filed.

Starr continued to represent Sims even though she had retained her own attorney. The ARDC was concerned that Starr was representing two clients, each having conflicting interests.

According to ARDC documents, Starr has estimated that 80 percent of his work is with evictions. He told the ARDC he has handled thousands of evictions through the course of his career, which dates back to 1978. He describes his most common client as “a middle-aged black woman who is a single mother.”

Starr, who purchased a unit at Marina City a year ago after renting for 18 years, told Marina City Online in late February he has done “a pretty good job for his clients” and that “any attorney in my shoes would have done the same.”

He says he has heard from other attorneys who have told him they would have done nothing different, telling him, “If that’s unethical, we’re all guilty.”