(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Panel: Lawyer fleeced clients, lied about judges and is a 'danger to the public' • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
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Date: 2025-08-22
A central Iowa lawyer is appealing a disciplinary commission’s findings that she is “a danger to the public,” lacks a basic understanding of the law and was “basically fleecing” her clients through inflated legal bills while peddling an “outlandish conspiracy theory” about corruption among the judiciary.
The Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court says Clive attorney Valerie Cramer has taken “advantage of vulnerable and unsophisticated clients” and now displays “an utter lack of remorse or contrition.”
The commission is recommending that Cramer’s law license be revoked by the Iowa Supreme Court, stating that her “billing practices and deceptive conduct puts the public at risk of further harm.”
Cramer, who has been licensed to practice law in Iowa since 2003, said Friday the commission’s findings are untrue, but declined to elaborate.
The disciplinary case stems from a complaint filed by the Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board in November 2024. That complaint, which recently became public after the Grievance Commission issued its findings in the matter, alleges numerous ethics violations related to Cramer’s competence, client trust accounts, billing for legal work, and false representations made to the court.
In one case, Cramer represented the estate of a recently deceased central Iowa man in a civil trial. Throughout the trial, the board alleges, Judge David Porter attempted to guide Cramer in laying the foundation for exhibits and testimony, and at one point adjourned court for one day so Cramer could better prepare for the proceedings.
During the trial, Cramer allegedly admitted to Porter she did not fully understand certain court rules and didn’t understand certain legal issues surrounding a surprise witness she intended to call. At the time, Porter cautioned Cramer that her actions came “dangerously close to trial by ambush.”
Later, Cramer expressed frustration with her inability admit certain pieces of evidence, to which Porter responded, “While I certainly appreciate that you are struggling to see how you can admit any evidence, it’s not as though that was unforeseeable. It was entirely foreseeable … You are a licensed attorney who is representing a client at this point, and it’s your responsibility, not mine, to explain to you how you get evidence in.”
The court ultimately entered a $110,000 judgment against Cramer’s client in that case, according to court records.
Allegations of overbilling for legal work
The disciplinary board has also questioned numerous legal fees Cramer charged to the estate involved in that case, noting that she claimed to have spent several hours preparing and filing a series of single-page Iowa State Bar Association forms; to have spent almost half an hour reading a form that consisted of a single sentence; and to have spent 1.25 hours reading a single-paragraph motion.
“Cramer knowingly misrepresented in her billing statements that she spent time filing documents,” the board alleges.
At a hearing on Cramer’s requests for payment of the fees, a probate judge remarked, “Honestly, I am horrified by this billing situation, and I don’t say that lightly. I really don’t. This was a simple estate. With one complicated matter.”
Cramer later filed an amended billing statement, adding and omitting certain expenses, changing the dates and descriptions of certain tasks and billing for work performed by an assistant at the rate of $95 per hour, the board alleges.
The probate judge later denied Cramer’s request for fees above and beyond the ordinary. In one court order, the judge stated that “Ms. Cramer’s filings in this matter are extremely troubling, and the court finds that Ms. Cramer’s claims related to the funds held by her law firm in regard to this estate lack nearly any credibility. The court does not make this finding lightly or accuse counsel of misconduct without good cause.”
Cramer alleges judge was ‘very nasty’
Cramer filed an appeal in the case. In her appeal, Cramer referenced herself as “the estate attorney” and asserted that Judge Porter had been “very nasty” toward her during the civil trial.
“At the beginning of the trial, the judge was angrily yelling and scowling at the administrator and the estate attorney,” Cramer alleged. “The estate attorney has PTSD and this yelling and scowling scared her … It was the most unfair trial the estate attorney has ever witnessed.”
Cramer claimed Porter’s “raging and screaming” triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder and left her terrified. She also claimed Porter later “had his court reporter change the transcript” of the proceedings. “The court reporter was probably afraid of losing her job if the judge gets mad,” Cramer alleged.
As part of the appeal, Cramer also accused Judge Katie Ranes, who handled the probate case related to the estate, of improperly filing an ethics complaint against her, asking “Is this honest? Is this retaliation for the appeal?”
“Cramer’s statements regarding Judge Porter’s conduct were knowing misrepresentations or were made with reckless disregard as to their truth,” the disciplinary board alleges. The board also alleges Cramer falsely accused Ranes of telling Cramer’s client she should fire Cramer.
In one of her court filings, Cramer argues that in addition to Porter, other judges have had their court reporters alter transcripts of court proceedings and “no one will do anything. The court reporters are afraid of the judges. And myself, the attorney who is objecting, looks like a crazy person and my clients suffer. Is this the new justice in Polk County, Iowa?”
Commission cites competency issues, overbilling
In December 2024 and January 2025, the Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court presided over a hearing on the disciplinary board’s charges against Cramer.
With regard to the trial involving the estate, the commission found that Cramer had “demonstrated a significant lack of expertise, experience, and knowledge in litigation and trial practice.” The commission noted that even though the case was being decided by a judge and not a jury, Cramer had filed jury instructions in the case — instructions the commission said “would have been woefully inadequate if it were a jury trial.”
These were not errors or miscalculations. These were attempts to mislead the court in order to collect an inflated amount of fees. – Grievance Commission of the Iowa Supreme Court, referring to alleged overbilling by Valerie Cramer
The commission also concluded that Cramer “did not understand fundamental issues relating to evidentiary rules” and “did not understand basic issues, such as authentication, foundation, hearsay, offers of proof to preserve issues for appeal, the timely disclosure of potential witnesses, or the consequences of having failed to disclose evidence.” Judge Porter, the commission found, “had to explain basic concepts of relevance” to Cramer.
As for the legal fees Cramer charged in the probate case, the commission concluded that she “engaged in egregious overbilling” by billing her client “highly inflated amounts for certain tasks” and by “double-billing and triple-billing” for some legal work. She also “billed for work she did not do and for proceedings that either did not occur or which she did not attend,” the commission stated.
“These were not errors or miscalculations,” the commission found. “These were attempts to mislead the court in order to collect an inflated amount of fees.”
Handling of teen’s case called ‘abhorrent’
The commission also concluded that it found Cramer’s claim that Porter and Ranes were dishonest and corrupt to be “very troubling,” noting that “there could not be more serious allegations against a judge.” Although Cramer “knew her allegations were false,” the commission stated, she claimed there was a “code of silence” among Iowa judges.
Cramer, the commission stated, “continued to allege this bizarre conspiracy theory even at the (disciplinary) hearing.” Her only motive, the commission said, appeared to be an effort “to cover up incompetence and fraudulent billing practices.”
The commission singled out Cramer’s actions in one particular probate case in which Cramer’s client was an 18-year-old woman administering the estate of the grandmother who had raised her.
The commission said it was “particularly bizarre” that Cramer refused to withdraw as the teen’s legal counsel, even after the young woman had hired a new attorney who appeared in court on her behalf.
Cramer “was going against her client’s wishes in order to pursue a self-serving agenda — collection of more attorneys’ fees,” the commission concluded. “When (Cramer) actively fought against her dismissal as counsel, her motive was a purely selfish one — her ongoing attempt to collect inflated fees.”
In that case, Cramer also failed to pursue a request for fees the teenager could have collected from the estate as its administrator — all so Cramer could “pursue her own attorneys’ fees with reckless abandon,” the commission concluded. Cramer also filed a small claims lawsuit against the teenager to collect additional fees, which the commission called “an attempt to intimidate and harass” her former client.
The commission called Cramer’s actions in that case “abhorrent” and “reprehensible,” adding that it was concerned that in her probate cases Cramer “was basically fleecing these limited estates of all their assets and leaving the beneficiaries with next to nothing.”
Commission: Corruption claims are ‘preposterous’
The commission noted that it had expected Cramer to appear at her disciplinary hearing and argue that her PTSD had contributed to her imagining that judges were conspiring against her.
“Unfortunately, quite the opposite occurred,” the commission stated. “At the hearing, (Cramer) doubled-down on most of her previously espoused bizarre conspiracy theories” and introduced medical opinions stating she was fit for duty as a lawyer.
As a result, the commission said, it had no choice but to conclude that Cramer’s “preposterous” conspiracy theories and her “disparagement of the judiciary and its staff, her lying to attorney colleagues, and her attacks against her clients were all done on purpose.”
In recommending that the Iowa Supreme Court revoke Cramer’s law license, the commission stated that should the court find such an action to be inappropriate, it recommends an alternative sanction of an indefinite license suspension with no possibility of reinstatement for three years.
Cramer is currently appealing the commission’s findings of fact and recommendations.
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