Working With The Disbarred

The Georgia Supreme Court has imposed a six-month suspension of an attorney on these facts

Tucker admits that in 2012 and 2013 he represented 26 clients in separate bankruptcy cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia, and that in each of those cases, he worked with Samuel Brantley, a former lawyer who had been disbarred as a result of a conviction to commit wire fraud. Tucker knew that Brantley had been disbarred but nevertheless allowed him to have contact with clients in person, by telephone and in writing; allowed him to meet with clients in Tucker’s office; allowed him to discuss and advise clients about the procedural and substantive aspects of their cases; did not tell the clients that Brantley had been disbarred and told clients Brantley was a lawyer; and allowed Brantley to prepare pleadings (although Tucker signed them and appeared in court). In July 2013 the U. S. Bankruptcy Court entered an order sanctioning Tucker in a case for allowing Brantley to effectively represent the client except for making court appearances, and it suspended him from practice in that court for six months.

Justice Nahmias concurred but would not treat the bankruptcy sanction as a mitigating factor. To the contrary

…the fact that another court felt so strongly about the misconduct that a Georgia attorney committed in its proceedings that it imposed its own sanction, rather than merely referring the attorney to the disciplinary authorities, should signal that the misconduct at issue is particularly serious and  worthy of professional discipline – that is, it should be viewed, if anything, as an aggravating factor.

(Mike Frisch)