Every attorney shall maintain complete records of the handling, maintenance, and disposition of all funds, securities, and other properties of a client at any time in his possession, from the time of receipt to the time of final distribution, and shall preserve such records for a period of five years after final distribution of such funds, securities, or other properties or any portion thereof, and failure to keep such records shall be grounds for appropriate disciplinary proceedings.
S.D. Codified Laws § 16-18-20.1
Record of client funds--Time preserved--Failure to keep as ground for discipline
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case In Re Discipline of Laprath (2003)
Most recently applied in In Re Discipline of Laprath (September 2003)
Source: Sup
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.