UPDATE: Tulsa attorney Ronald Durbin was charged with assault and battery the morning after this article was posted.
2 News is working to learn more about the charges. Available court records say the incident for which he's charged happened on April 10.
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TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa attorney is speaking out after the Oklahoma Bar Association filed a 69-page long complaint against him.
Ronald Durbin founded Viridian Legal Services in Tulsa and is known for being a medical cannabis activist.
He's also represented Tulsa City Councilor Grant Miller in a handful of lawsuits, including the dispute between Miller and incumbent Mykey Arthrell on the validity of the District 5 race. A Tulsa judge ruled the election was valid and Miller won the seat.
Durbin says this complaint has been about three and a half years in the making, and up until the bar association filed it, he wasn’t allowed to talk about it.
So, he says he provoked the bar association to file the complaint so he could share his side of the story.
The Oklahoma Bar Association filed a complaint against him that included 11 grievances.
The first grievance states a woman accused Durbin of threatening her with financial ruin.
The second grievance, and the only one that involves a client of Durbin’s, says in 2016 or 2017, a mother and her son were in a wreck and hired Durbin to represent them.
The complaint says in the spring of 2019, the family saw the case had been dismissed.
It went on to say in 2020, the family sent a grievance to OBA alleging that in the five years, Durbin represented them, she had only met with him twice.
But Durbin says he was buying the woman time in the court process while she received treatment related to the wreck.
“She was still treating heavily with a chiropractor, and when she is still treating, you can't really initiate and bring a lawsuit forward,” says Durbin. “But you also don’t want to lose the case, so you file the claims, and you have six months to serve. That’s 180 days. After 180 days, she was still treating.”
Durbin also says during that time, he had had a heart attack and was unable to practice law for a year and a half.
He says he helped the woman get a new attorney, and the case was eventually settled.
Another grievance in the complaint involves a Tulsa County judge and an argument at the courthouse.
“As she got an attitude about it, I said, go back to the bar,” says Durbin.
Durbin says those comments chalk up to freedom of speech.
“What the complaint proves is no speech is actually free,” says Durbin. “This is the cost of me exercising free speech.”
We did reach out to the Oklahoma Bar Association, who said they would not be commenting on the complaint.
Durbin says the next steps in this will be depositions.
He is representing himself, so he will be deposing the witnesses and those involved in the complaint.
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