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People v. Pacheco-Van Voorhees.

No. 25PDJ46. 7/8/2025. Stipulation to Discipline.

August 21, 2025


The Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the parties’ stipulation to discipline and suspended Dianne A. Pacheco-Van Voorhees (attorney registration number 32753) for six months, all to be stayed upon Pacheco-Van Voorhees’s successful completion of a two-year period of probation, with conditions. Pacheco-Van Voorhees’s probation took effect on July 8, 2025.

In her practice, Pacheco-Van Voorhees failed to conduct mandatory quarterly reconciliations and did not maintain a general trust account ledger showing transactions for all of her clients. Nor did she reconcile the amount of client funds she had earned against the balances of individual client’s retainers and against her monthly bank statements. Between November 2023 and January 2024, Pacheco-Van Voorhees recklessly mishandled approximately $3,461.75 of her clients’ funds by moving the funds based on estimates, rather than the time she billed on her clients’ matters. She covered missing client funds with her own funds.

In late November 2023, Pacheco-Van Voorhees’s trust account should have held at least $3,671, comprising $1,671 in unearned funds belonging to one client and $2,000 in unearned funds belonging to a second client. But the trust account balance was only $209.25. In late January 2024, Pacheco-Van Voorhees withdrew $2,000 from her trust account to refund the first client’s retainer. That same day, she transferred $2,100 from her operating account to her trust account. Because Pacheco-Van Voorhees did not keep a general ledger or client ledger, however, she was unable to determine the reason for the $2,100 deposit. In February 2024, her bank notified disciplinary authorities after it refused a check issued for a sum greater than the balance in her trust account.

Through this misconduct, Pacheco-Van Voorhees violated Colo. RPC 1.15A(a) (a lawyer must hold client property separate from the lawyer’s own property); Colo. RPC 1.15C(c) (a lawyer must reconcile trust account records on at least a quarterly basis); and Colo. RPC 1.15D (a lawyer must maintain trust account records).

Official Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge proceedings can be found at the Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge website.

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