Minnesota attorney Samuel McCloud disbarred

Minnesota attorney Samuel McCloud has been disbarred. Because of his extensive disciplinary history, the Minnesota Supreme Court arrived at discipline that exceeded the recommendation.

“Given the many and serious instances of misconduct involved here, the gravity of McCloud’s extensive history of misconduct which has injured his clients and harmed the profession, and McCloud’s continuing complete lack of remorse, we conclude that another suspension would not adequately protect the public, the legal profession, or deter future misconduct by McCloud or other lawyers,” the Minnesota Supreme Court wrote in a per curiam opinion.

In 1977, McCloud was admitted to practice law in Minnesota. He has been disciplined multiple times since 1986, including one public reprimand, one private probation, seven admonishments, and three suspensions. “McCloud’s prior misconduct runs the gamut of the rules governing professional conduct for attorneys,” the court noted.

Most recently, McCloud was indefinitely suspended in 2023. He had been suspended in 2021, and although he was reinstated, he failed to provide proof of successful completion of the MPRE, a condition of his reinstatement. McCloud was then indefinitely suspended after various conduct, including making derogatory statements and profanity about a client to a licensed bail bondsman. In the opinion accompanying the indefinite suspension, the court noted, “McCloud tells us that he will not commit misconduct again, but he has told us that before and yet here we are again.”

In March 2020, a 73-year-old man hired McCloud to represent him in a DWI case. His case was filed in April 2020, and he was charged with two counts of misdemeanor DWI. While McCloud appeared on the man’s behalf at arraignment, he did not file a certificate of representation. Because of this, the first assistant Morrison County attorney did not know about the representation and contacted the man directly. The letter stated that he could plead guilty to one misdemeanor DWI charge and not have to serve jail time, but the offer ended at the pretrial hearing. He did not understand the letter, so he asked McCloud about it. However, McCloud never explained the offer.

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The same day as the pretrial conference, McCloud was suspended for a minimum of 60 days, effective March 10, 2021. While McCloud let the Morrison County Attorney’s Office know of the suspension, he did not inform his client.

McCloud was conditionally reinstated in May 2021. The first prosecutor renewed the plea offer, but let McCloud know that if his client did not accept the offer, the client would be charged with a gross misdemeanor. However, McCloud did not let his client know. When McCloud was informed that his client was being charged with a higher-level offense, he did not let his client know. In the 15 months that the misdemeanor case was pending, McCloud never spoke with the prosecutor despite multiple attempts to communicate.

The Morrison County Attorney’s Office then filed a new complaint charging the client with one count of gross misdemeanor DWI test refusal and one count of misdemeanor DWI. His client was scared when he got the complaint in the mail, but McCloud responded, “they do it to everyone.”

A second prosecutor was on the new case and emailed McCloud with another offer to get the gross misdemeanor count dismissed. McCloud never told his client about the offer. The second prosecutor then contacted McCloud about his client, and McCloud apparently was unaware who the man was or what he was accused of doing.

Ultimately, the client terminated representation and pleaded guilty to fourth-degree DWI, and the gross misdemeanor was dropped. However, he never received any unearned amount of the $6,000 flat-fee he paid McCloud for representation. His drivers’ license was also suspended for nearly two years while the case was pending, and he had to rely on his daughter for transportation.

The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility‘s director initiated the present case in 2024. The referee recommended an indefinite suspension with no right to petition for reinstatement for 90 days, and the OLPR director argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court that McCloud should face the same discipline.

But the court found that the discipline recommendation was “too lenient” in McCloud’s case. “Under these circumstances, we conclude that the appropriate discipline is disbarment,” the court concluded. “McCloud’s decades-long disciplinary history for similar misconduct accounts for our unusually large departure from the referee’s recommended discipline.”