My dad, an attorney in York County, PA, informed me that today was a sad day for attorneys in the area. Today, it hit the media that a now disbarred attorney and his son were accused of stealing almost $1.1 million from their clients.

Mark Frankel was a widely known attorney in the area. Using the back of the yellow pages as a prominent way of advertising, he trademarked the phrase “Turn the book over” which later the firm shortened to “TTBO.” If you lived in York, you couldn’t miss seeing one of his billboards.

Last year, Frankel was disbarred for inappropriately touching his younger male clients. He denied the accusations and claimed the judge was anti-Semitic, thus persecuting him for being a Jew. Today, the big picture story of how the firm did business broke. It appears that Frankel and his son, Stephen, (who has been arrested twice in the past year for cocaine possession) were using the funds in their escrow account to pay the firm’s IRS payroll taxes. Stephen also allegedly withdrew $40,000 to buy himself a new Hummer.

Now, clients are mad. They’ve been lied to and their trust is shattered. As one client put it “After something like this happens, how can you trust another attorney again?” It’s like Enron all over again, though on a much more local scale. Unfortunately, these few rotten apples continue to reinforce the public’s negative perception of lawyers.

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Advertising Laws as stated by the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct (provided by the Legal Information Institute)

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