The Iowa Supreme Court has suspended the law license of an eastern Iowa attorney accused of having sex with a client. Clovis Bowles of Lisbon won’t be able to practice law for 18 months.
Bowles committed “multiple violations of his ethical duties as an Iowa lawyer” according to a commission that reviews cases like this one. Bowles first met the woman in August of 2007, just after she’d been released from a mental health facility where she’d been treated after a suicide attempt. She asked Bowles to serve as her attorney, to help her regain custody of her three children.
After they’d had sex at his office and her home, she filed a complaint against Bowles, but later married Bowles, believing she’d be a better prospect for getting her kids back if she were married. The marriage lasted for a month and a half. The two were caught in a compromising situation at the Black Hawk County Courthouse; Bowles was at the courthouse working as her attorney at the time.
The Iowa Supreme Court says Bowles had sex with a “vulnerable” client and “exhibited extremely poor judgment.”