Law firm hiring disbarred attorneys as paralegals creates ethics and liability risks

I would never hire a disbarred attorney. Especially if they were mishandling client funds. Every friggin ethics law school class learns that mishandling a trust account is going to get you in big time trouble.

I wouldn't do it. I had a very similar experience when trying to hire for my firm. I had about the same number of disbarred applicants. The worst was a former attorney who lied about why he didn't practice anymore. It turned out he was disbarred raping 2 women, did time in jail, and got out. One of the other applicants was in the middle of an investigation and decided to voluntarily give up her license before the process was over. She lied about what happened. I was able to get all the documents from the board of PR. I sent her a rejection email and flat out told her why. Her response, "You aren't supposed to be able to get those records." Just don't do it. No insurance is going to cover it if something comes from hiring that person when you knew they were disbarred.

I hired a suspended attorney I went to law school with to do paralegal, legal assistant and office management type work for me. It didn’t work out because she was very flakey and would go MIA when I really needed her sometimes. Other times when she did show up, she inserted herself and her own personal issues into the client meetings, and tried to give them personal life advice as well as legal advice when I had never authorized her to do either one.