Trial Opens for Attorney Accused of Duping Clients : Courts: Leisure World lawyer James D. Gunderson got million-dollar bequests from estates of very elderly that other heirs challenge as ill-gotten gains. He insists he never abused anyone’s trust for an inheritance.

SANTA ANA —  James D. Gunderson, the Orange County lawyer whose million-dollar inheritances from clients’ estates sparked changes in state law, was accused in court Tuesday of engaging in a scheme to profit from his clients and misusing his position “to line his own pockets.”

The allegations were leveled during opening statements of a civil trial in which heirs of a deceased Leisure World man are challenging a $3.5-million net-after-taxes bequest to Gunderson.

The relatives of Merrill A. Miller, who died in February, 1992, say Gunderson coerced or deceived the bedridden 98-year-old man into leaving him the largest single portion of an $18-million estate.

“This man did the most despicable (thing) . . . used his position of trust not for those who relied upon him, but for himself,” said John Westover, a Phoenix attorney representing Miller’s relatives, who have sued for the return of the more than $5 million that Gunderson took from the estate as his inheritance and to pay the federal taxes due on the bequest.

Gunderson has insisted that there was nothing inappropriate about the bequest, saying that in serving as Miller’s attorney for 20 years the two had become close friends, and that Miller intended to reward that friendship with the biggest share of his estate.

But Westover, in his opening arguments, said “James Gunderson was not a friend (of Miller). Gunderson was an exploiter.”

Gunderson’s lawyer, Stuart Lesansky, vigorously denied that Gunderson had done anything wrong, and argued the lawyer and Miller were fishing buddies who took fishing trips together to Alaska and other destinations almost every year.

As supporting evidence, Lesansky brought to court a 65-pound stuffed Alaskan salmon that Miller caught on a fishing trip a few years ago.

Outside the courtroom, Gunderson, 69, was asked why the relatives had filed the court action. He paused, then said: “Greed.”

The non-jury trial, before Superior Court Judge Byron K. McMillan, is the latest in a series of actions that have followed a November, 1992, Times report detailing how Gunderson had inherited millions of dollars in cash, stock, and real estate from clients whose wills and trusts were prepared by him and other members of his law firm.

The inheritances appeared to conflict with a longstanding California Supreme Court ruling that anything more than a “modest” gift to an attorney preparing a will raised questions of impropriety. The justices in that landmark case decided that a $20,000 bequest was excessive, and ordered that inheritance returned.

Immediately after The Times’ articles appeared, the State Bar of California publicly disclosed that it was conducting an investigation of Gunderson’s legal practice. In January, Gunderson surrendered his license to practice law in California after State Bar prosecutors announced that they were prepared to file conflict-of-interest charges that could have led to his possible disbarment.

The inheritances described in The Times’ story are still being investigated by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The newspaper’s disclosures also sparked changes in how attorneys in California are permitted to write wills and trusts. A law, pushed by Assemblymen Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) and Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), invalidates most bequests to attorneys preparing wills or trusts that bequeath them gifts.

In the trial opening Wednesday, Westover, the relatives’ attorney, said he will try to show that Gunderson engaged “in repetitious conduct which resulted in his benefiting from his clients’ estates.”

Westover said he will prove that Gunderson took steps to conceal from probate court officials the assets he got from his clients’ estates, misled clients as to the meaning of legal documents he prepared, and prepared wills and trusts making himself a beneficiary when clients were too senile or infirm to know what they were signing.

Gunderson won Miller’s confidence and convinced the elderly man that he would never go into a retirement home and that he would “care for him forever,” Westover said.

Lesansky, however, disputed Westover’s claim that there was any suspicious pattern of inheritances, saying that Gunderson inherited gifts “a mere handful of times,” and each inheritance was a “unique circumstance.” Lesansky said Gunderson ran a “model” practice in Laguna Hills.

Lesansky described Miller as a “very dear and longstanding” friend of Gunderson--for 20 years--and that it was Miller’s idea to bequeath roughly one-fourth of his estate to Gunderson.

Outside court, Gunderson said, “I never thought in my wildest imagination that I would be” sued over this inheritance. “Miller was my friend. Merrill always said that a friend is God’s only perfect gift. . . .” Gunderson was expected to testify today.