Image of Dollison’s campaign launch from Facebook.

When Allan Dollison launched his campaign for district attorney three months ago, he made a point of addressing what he called “a mistake” he’d made early in his career. He briefly explained what happened.

In 1997, only two years after establishing his own office, Dollison said, he closed his private practice to seek employment elsewhere. 

“I made a serious error in judgment by not finishing the work in three cases and representing that I had filed a motion … when I hadn’t — to a client in another case,” he said. “I apologize — then and now — profusely for that mistake. It was an error in judgment but one I have learned from. I have learned to be extra careful and exceptionally honest and hardworking. I am a Christian and I ask for forgiveness.”

You can listen to Dollison’s entire campaign kickoff speech below. The relevant portion starts around 3:45.

Dollison’s speech.

Despite Dollison’s attempts to deal with this issue preemptively, questions have continued to dog him in the campaign. It was brought up during a recent interview on KHSU, and in the Outpost‘s own elections section, a question about his state bar record received more up votes than any other question posed to any other candidate. Dollison recently posted a response, again describing his past deeds as, simply, “a mistake.”

While it’s clear that the Army veteran and former prosecutor hasn’t tried to hide this chapter of his past, a review of the full state bar disciplinary document (pdf here) calls into question the accuracy of Dollison’s description of the events as a singular mistake.

The state bar’s website shows that in 2000 Dollison acknowledged sixteen counts of professional misconduct for these 1997 incidents, which amounted to acts of “moral turpitude,” according to the bar. As punishment he was briefly suspended from practicing law, placed on two years’ probation and ordered to retake an ethics exam.

According to the document, which Dollison signed, he took money from several clients for services he never performed, ignored numerous phone messages and mail correspondence from those clients and, in one case, created fake documents on which he forged the signature of an opposing attorney. And when state bar investigators asked him to explain his actions, he refused to cooperate.

We asked Dollison to elaborate about these incidents, and in a phone conversation this morning he said that he tries not to focus on the past and hadn’t read the disciplinary document in 14 years.

Pressed for specifics, Dollison said that he was in a difficult place in 1997. His father had died when he was 22, his mother when he was 29. “I was alone in my life; I didn’t have anybody in my life,” Dollison said. And he was unhappy trying to keep his own practice afloat. 

He decided to abandon his private practice, and in October 1997 he took a job with the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. According to the disciplinary document, Dollison left several clients hanging, their cases unresolved.

In one case he had accepted $837 from a client, agreeing to file a motion to set aside a default judgment that had been entered against her. After several months without communicating with the client — despite her multiple attempts to reach him — Dollison finally sent her a letter saying that he’d filed the motion that had been denied by the court. He included a copy of the motion and a copy of the notice of ruling on that motion — or so it appeared.

“In fact,” says the state bar, “Dollison never filed a motion, there was no hearing, he fabricated the notice of ruling and forged signatures on documents he sent to the client.” But he kept the fee.

Dollison had also been retained by a couple looking to file for bankruptcy, a man who wanted to sue someone for messing with his car, and another man who had a dispute with his tenants. All of these clients paid hundreds of dollars in advance for services that were never delivered, and all suffered negative consequences due to Dollison’s subsequent disappearance. These clients tried for months to contact Dollison, leaving messages on his home and work phones, contacting the court and sending letters. Investigators with the state bar, who’d been alerted to Dollison’s behavior, also had trouble getting him to respond to voice messages and letters.

It’s clear that at least some of this correspondence did reach Dollison. He signed for a letter sent from a client via certified mail, and in a phone conversation with an investigator he promised to respond to the charges via fax but never did so.

Before doling out judgment for these misdeeds, the state bar took some pity on Dollison. In a section on “mitigating circumstances” the report says Dollison lacked experience and business acumen and accepted difficult, “marginal” cases due to financial difficulties. It also says he had fallen into “a severe depression” that went undiagnosed and largely untreated for years.

In response to questions from the Outpost, Dollison sent a written statement explaining that he has changed.

“I have always said you learn more from your failures in life than you do from your successes, and this is especially true in my case,” the statement says.

As an example of how he’s changed, Dollison describes a case he handled while working for the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office. Dollison makes a serious allegation of misconduct within the DA’s office and says he was responsible for righting the wrong. (The Outpost won’t print Dollison’s full statement since the allegations have not been corroborated.)

“I learned from my mistakes,” Dollison says in his statement. “I have grown from my mistakes. In the [above referenced] case, no one ever got in trouble, because I did the exact and appropriate thing. I am 47 years old and I have one unfortunate small sad chapter in my life. All I ask is to be judged by my entire life and not one aspect. I also ask that people consider that you can and do learn from your mistakes, and that you can become a better person, and a better lawyer.”

The statement doesn’t specifically address the forged signatures, unreturned fees and lack of cooperation mentioned in the state bar report. Asked in this morning’s phone conversation to address those things, Dollison said he likely didn’t respond to attempts to reach him because he was “under a lot of stress” and “trying to hide from it,” though he added that he was just guessing at his motivation since it’s been many years since these incidents occurred. 

As for the forgery, Dollison said, “Whatever I did was wrong. It was a terrible mistake.” Asked why he didn’t address this more specifically in his campaign announcement he said he hadn’t reviewed the details of these incidents in many years. 

Had he forgotten about the forgery?

“I had, yeah” he said.

Dollison repeatedly said that he tries not to live in the past and he has learned from what happened.

“I am not the person who made a terrible mistake 17 years ago,” he said.