People v. Holland.
No. 26PDJ4. 8/18/2026. Stipulation to Discipline.
October 5, 2026
The Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the parties’ stipulation to discipline and suspended Steven William Holland (attorney registration number 41768) for three years, with one year to be served and two years to be stayed upon Holland’s successful completion of a two-year period of probation, with conditions. Holland’s suspension, which took into account significant mitigating weight, was effective on October 2, 2026.
Holland is a solo practitioner with his own bankruptcy law firm. For years until 2025, Holland failed to use his trust account and deposited all funds received from clients, including unearned fees, directly into his firm’s operating account. During that time, Holland used funds from the operating account to pay his firm’s expenses, his staff, and himself. Holland knew that his financial practices before the summer of 2025 did not meet the requirements of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct.
In summer 2024, Holland engaged an accounting service to help bring his accounting into compliance with professional rules. In July 2024, he admitted during a meeting with the service’s bookkeeper that he was depositing all client funds he received into his operating account instead of his trust account as he should, and that he did not know how to properly handle lawyer trust accounting. The bookkeeper notified disciplinary authorities.
Beginning in spring 2025, Holland began integrating a practice and financial management software program into his law practice. He deposited unearned funds into his trust account before the system was fully in place, and in mid-August 2025, his own accounting reflected a significant shortfall in the client funds that he should have been holding in his accounts. Since that time, Holland eliminated the shortfall and confirmed that all unearned funds were in his trust account.
Holland’s clients suffered no actual financial harm because of his prior failure to properly handle unearned client funds.
Through this conduct, Holland violated Colo. RPC 1.15A(a) (a lawyer must hold client property separate from the lawyer’s own property) and Colo. RPC 8.4(c) (it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation).