Legal limbo: Clients of disbarred Durham immigration attorney fight for refunds

Clients of a former immigration attorney in Durham are speaking out about legal services they say were never delivered and the thousands of dollars paid to the lawyer they say they can't get back. Many of them are raising concerns about North Carolina's secretive system of investigating lawyers.

It's been over five years since Reyna Villanueva fled the violence in her native El Salvador, seeking asylum in the U.S. She and her husband made a home in Raleigh.

"It's really hard because I came running from a country where there's a lot of violence to come to another country where I was robbed," Villanueva told ABC 11 through a translator.

Villanueva and her husband legally filed for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. And when they moved to the Triangle they went to the Guess Road offices of Charles Kunz, a Durham immigration attorney, to navigate the immigration process.

She says over the coming weeks and months, she gave Kunz nearly $10,000 for her case -- with nothing to show for it. No evidence Kunz did substantial work.

"I'm scared. I'm frustrated because I doesn't have a lawyer," said Villanueva. "I don't have any money or any help to get another lawyer."

Katherine Mitchell, a migrant advocate with Triangle-based Mirgrant Abuse Watchdogs, helped Villanueva file a grievance against Kunz with the North Carolina State Bar which investigates allegations of lawyer misconduct and dispenses discipline.

"That's how I originally got involved actually because (Kunz) was not responding to her messages," said Mitchell who is now working with ten other local families who've filed similar grievances against Kunz for grievances including filing incomplete immigration paperwork and failing to attach necessary documentation.

But the state bar's investigative process is shrouded in secrecy. State law forbids the bar from making the grievances public to protect attorneys who've done nothing wrong.

But in Charles Kunz case - the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission and Wake County Superior Court ruled that he did do wrong. Kunz was stripped of his law license, disbarred for misconduct early last month. Kunz acknowledged that he misappropriated entrusted funds totaling approximately $85,000.

Then days later, Kunz took his own life. He died by suicide on April 21.

Villanueva and the other families are out the thousands of dollars they had given Kunz. Now wishing they'd known his history with aggrieved clients before knocking on his door in Durham

"If I would have known that he was a bad lawyer, I would have never gotten him," saod Villanueva.

ABC 11 reached out to the NCSB to talk about the lack of transparency in the grievance process. We did not hear back.

"I am hopeful that all of Kunz' clients can get their funds returned to them," Mitchell said. "It would be great if (NCSB) was more public about these complaints so that we could have some consumer protection for families like Reyna."

The majority of grievances filed against North Carolina lawyers are dismissed. In 2022, the bar's Grievance Committee considered 746 grievance cases. 568 of those were investigated and dismissed.