FARGO (AP) - North Dakota's Supreme Court suspended seven attorneys' law licenses this year for violating professional conduct codes. It was the most suspensions for lawyers in at least 30 years.

The Supreme Court also placed two more attorneys on interim suspension, preventing them from practicing law until disciplinary proceedings against them conclude.

The number of suspensions is the most since 1976, when records were readily available to check.

"It's really a few bad apples," said Katharine Schaffzin, an assistant law professor at the University of North Dakota, which has the state's only law school.

"Attorneys provide excellent services in the normal course," she said. "They're highly skilled and trained, and their purpose is to serve the client."

In North Dakota, there are 1,885 licensed attorneys, including 545 with out-of-state addresses.

The Supreme Court has suspended 58 attorneys in North Dakota since 1990. Another 22 were disbarred for violating ethical rules. This year marks the first time since 2001 that the Supreme Court didn't disbar at least one attorney.

"For a lawyer to get suspended doesn't mean that lawyer is a bad lawyer," said Bill Neumann, executive director of the State Bar Association of North Dakota and a Supreme Court justice from 1993 to 2005. Neumann said. "It's certainly not a death blow to a lawyer, but it's a serious setback."

Attorneys as a group may be embarrassed by the behavior of a few but the public shouldn't paint them all with a broad brush, he said. Neumann points to the low percentage of lawyers - less than one half of 1 percent - who are suspended each year.

"There are all those lawyer jokes out there but the fact is, lawyers as a group are held to very high standards of behavior," Neumann said. "As a group, we aren't worse than any other group of human beings, but we probably aren't much better."