Topeka ? A well-known Lawrence attorney argued Thursday that he was a public servant, not a public menace.

Standing before the seven justices of the Kansas Supreme Court, James E. Rumsey and his attorney argued that Rumsey didn’t deserve a year’s suspension from practicing law, the punishment recommended by the state authority that disciplines attorneys.

Chief Justice Kay McFarland said the court would take the matter under advisement and rule at a later time.

“Mr. Rumsey is not only a good lawyer, he’s a great lawyer,” said Rumsey’s attorney, Jerry K. Levy. “He does a service in Douglas County that few do.”

Rumsey was before the court Thursday because of two separate complaints from clients he represented in the late 1990s. One case was a divorce; the other involved an on-the-job injury.

Rumsey has admitted that while handling the cases, he violated a number of professional-conduct rules — for example, mingling an unearned advance fee with his personal money and failing to keep the injured woman and her family informed about the status of her case.

But Rumsey said he disagreed with one of the allegations against him: that he made misleading statements in a lawsuit he filed in an attempt to collect legal fees from the woman he represented in the divorce.

Preston Ransone, the husband of the injured woman, said another attorney had recommended Rumsey as “the best lawyer in Lawrence.”

Upon meeting Rumsey, Ransone said, he believed he’d found the “bulldog” he needed to take on Pizza Hut, where his wife was working when she suffered a head injury.

¢ Attorney faces court sanctions (5-22-03)

“The problem is, he didn’t do anything,” Ransone said. “You can have a hell of a bulldog, but if he just lays down in the yard, what are you going to do?”

Ransone said nearly two years had passed before he realized Rumsey wasn’t working on the case. By that time, the window for making a workers’ compensation claim was about to expire. Ransone filed a complaint, and in October, a hearing panel found that Rumsey’s actions caused the Ransones to lose potential grounds for a lawsuit.

Rumsey has said that at the time, his wife was undergoing chemotherapy and an associate in his office had quit — leaving behind an unresolved caseload. Rumsey told the court Thursday that his secretary at the time had a drinking problem.

In an effort to show Rumsey’s merit, his attorney submitted a newspaper clipping to the court showing that Rumsey recently challenged the truthfulness of information a Lawrence police officer was using to get search warrants.

The officer, Stuart “Mike” Peck, since has been fired, and at least 28 of his cases have been dismissed.

This is Rumsey’s sixth disciplinary proceeding in his 30-plus years of practicing law in Kansas. He has argued that he deserved no more than a written censure.