In In re Moore, 684 S.E,2d 71 (Ga 2009), the Supreme Court of Georgia disbarred a lawyer for professional misconduct for knowingly selling a house for more than what was listed on the contract and not releasing a buyer’s money or paying closing fees in a second case.
The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the two disciplinary actions against the attorney and agreed the attorney should be disbarred for violating Ga. St. Bar R. 4-102(d):1.3, 1.4, 1.15(I) and (II), 1.16, 8.4, and 9.3.
The attorney also failed to file a timely answer or notice of rejection of discipline, causing him to be in default of the violations charged, The court ruled that an attorney is obligated to give effective representation and that this attorney misappropriated the clients funds in their trust account and did not respond to the State Bar about insufficient funds in the trust account. See also In re Burke, 286 Ga. 729; 690 S.E.2d 854 (Ga 2010).
This case teaches us the importance of a lawyer’s responsibilities under Rule 8.4(a)(4)(5) that states a lawyer must not “engage in professional misconduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation; and who has failed to pay any final judgment against such lawyer for money collected by him within ten days”. In addition, Ga R. Prof. Conduct 4-102(d):1.15(II) states “provides that all funds held by a lawyer for a client shall be deposited in and administered from a trust account; a lawyer shall not withdraw funds from such trust account for the lawyer’s personal use except earned attorney’s fee”.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment