Disbarred San Diego attorney Kelly Duford Williams stole her clients’ money. That was made clear in court documents and proceedings before the State Bar of California.
Clients complained that settlements she reached on their behalf were far below what was initially promised. Making matters worse, she failed to turn over the funds.
At the time her scheme to steal from her clients was becoming known – she was arrested in 2023 – the State Bar’s Client Trust Account Protection Program was coming online in an effort to prevent cases like Williams’ from happening again.
That first year, 21 law firms volunteered for the program’s compliance review process to evaluate how they were handling clients’ funds. The review is no longer voluntary.
The mandatory compliance review program began in the fourth quarter of 2025. At that time, 100 random law firms were subject to review.
The initial testing, says the California Bar Association, showed that “attorneys, whether at large firms, medium-size firms, or solo practitioners, are not complying with important record-keeping requirements which, if (they) were in place, would prevent negligent trust fund management errors.”
The results from the review of the 100 attorney trust accounts will be released by the Division of Regulation in mid-September. The division is the part of the California Bar which regulates and licenses attorneys.
In addition, the number of future reviews has been expanded to 400 law firms. The bar is in the process of randomly choosing those firms.
The audit launch didn’t take long to affect behavior.
Rick Coca, the spokesperson for the bar, revealed that the “number of notices the State Bar receives from banks letting us know about insufficient funds transactions in client trust accounts has been going down.”
The number of reported cases dropped 27% in one year, between 2024 and 2025, said Coca.
“These reviews are designed to support attorneys and their staff in building strong, reliable record-keeping practices that protect clients and reinforce confidence in the legal profession,” said Steven Moawad, special counsel in the State Bar’s Office of Regulation.
While the number of insufficient funds notices has declined, Coca says, “Overall, complaints of all types have been going up, reaching more than 21,000 for Fiscal Year 2025.”
The State Bar of California’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel reported for the calendar year 2025, the number of California attorneys disbarred was 73. The number suspended or placed on probation was 77. There are more than 200,000 licensed attorneys on active status in the state.
Williams was disbarred soon after authorities filed criminal charges against her. One of her clients, identified only as Rachel H. in State Bar documents, won a settlement from State Farm insurance for $109,000 on a mold exposure case. After attorney’s costs, she should have received $65,400.
But the money was never deposited in the bank trust account in the client’s name, which is required by law. Williams had spent it.
The bar’s client security fund, backed entirely by California lawyers, eventually paid out more than $365,000 to 13 Williams victims who applied for restitution. The fund covered the $65,400 Rachel H. lost.
