A Franklin attorney who sat on a client's $20,000 wrongful death settlement for nearly four years has been suspended from practicing law in Tennessee for five years, after the state Supreme Court overturned a disciplinary panel's recommendation that he be disbarred outright. Fred C. Dance, who had practiced law in Tennessee for 46 years without documented discipline before the case began, deposited the settlement check into his Interest on Lawyer Trust Account and then used the money for personal expenses rather than promptly turning it over to his client.
The case, formally titled Dance v. Board of Professional Responsibility, traces back to a 2017 wrongful death lawsuit Dance handled, according to The Tennessean. The opposing party sent Dance a $20,000 check on his client's behalf, but the client did not receive those funds until nearly four years later, prompting a complaint to the Board of Professional Responsibility. That complaint set formal enforcement in motion, with the board filing a Petition for Discipline on May 25, 2021, followed by a Supplemental Petition for Discipline on February 10, 2022, according to the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee.
Six Rule Violations Cited by the Hearing Panel
A hearing panel concluded that Dance violated six distinct provisions of the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct, spanning Rules 1.4(a)(3) and 1.4(a)(4) on communication with clients, Rules 1.15(a) and 1.15(d) on safekeeping and prompt delivery of client funds, and Rules 8.4(a) and 8.4(c) on professional misconduct involving dishonesty, according to the Tennessee Bar Association. Under Tennessee Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15, attorneys are required to deposit all client settlement proceeds into designated trust accounts and preserve complete transaction ledgers for at least five years, per Law Firm Velocity. Given those findings, the hearing panel recommended that Dance be disbarred.
Supreme Court Applies Its Own Review Standard
The Tennessee Supreme Court's unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Sarah K. Campbell, explicitly clarified that the high court reviews a hearing panel's recommended punishment de novo under Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9, Section 33.1(d), rather than applying a more deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. That distinction gave the justices room to revisit the disbarment recommendation on their own terms. The case was submitted for consideration on written briefs during the court's October 2025 Jackson docket, without oral arguments, the bar association's reporting notes.
Under American Bar Association guidelines applied in Tennessee, knowing conversion of client property carries a presumptive baseline sanction of disbarment. Even so, the court modified Dance's punishment to a five-year suspension in the interest of maintaining sanction uniformity, weighing how similar attorney misconduct cases have been handled across the state. Dance represented himself pro se before the Supreme Court, while the Board of Professional Responsibility was represented on appeal by Brentwood attorney Davison Douglas, an arrangement the bar association's coverage describes as relatively uncommon in state high court discipline appeals.
Immediate Restrictions Under Rule 9
Under Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9, Section 28.1, Dance's suspension took effect immediately upon entry of the September 4, 2026 order, requiring him to stop practicing law at once, notify pending clients, return client property, and file an affidavit of compliance with the board. Suspended attorneys are barred from accepting new cases or holding trust funds while their suspension remains active. Dance's punishment consists of three years of active suspension, after which he must complete two years of probation and formally petition the Supreme Court for reinstatement before he can return to practicing law, per the board's filings.
Dance earned his Juris Doctor from the Nashville School of Law in 1980 and a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University in 1974, according to Martindale-Hubbell records. His disciplinary case is the latest in a string of Williamson County attorney sanctions to reach the Tennessee Supreme Court, following the July disbarment of Brentwood attorney Connie Reguli in an unrelated Board of Professional Responsibility proceeding.
