Court: Convicted lawyer may return to practice

PORTLAND — A Standish lawyer who served federal prison time for defrauding the U.S. government in a trucking scam can practice law again, the state supreme court ruled Friday.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court placed several conditions on Brian L. Datson’s practice, including that he take a class on professional conduct at the University ot Maine School of Law, and that for two years his practice be supervised by another attorney, Bruce B. Hochman.

In 1993, Datson was sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding the government and several trucking companies.

Federal prosecutors accused Datson and another man, Stephen Mitchell of Naples, of setting up phony trucking companies to get Department of Defense trucking contracts. Then they would illegally broker out the contracts to trucking companies. Eventually, Datson and Mitchell stopped paying the trucking companies altogether, prosecutors said.

Mitchell was sentenced to four months in federal prison.

The Board of Overseers of the Bar sought Datson’s continued suspension or disbarment. But the court said Friday that was too severe, noting that he was not acting as a lawyer during his crimes and that he had not attempted to practice law since his suspension.

“The court concludes that Datson’s conduct, although serious, was not so egregious” that it justified a continued suspension or disbarment, the court said.