Art Of The Steal

After rejecting as unduly lenient a proposed two-year suspension, the Georgia Supreme Court found a four-year suspension insufficient and ordered disbarment of an attorney

based on his conduct in connection with his representation, beginning in 2003, of a client and the various organizations his client created related to his professional endeavors as an art promoter (collectively, “the client”)…

Although Coulter’s work for the complaining client began as representation on personal tax matters and a landlord-tenant dispute, it expanded over the years to include a number of matters including personal and business issues. In 2010, Coulter assumed more responsibility over the client’s affairs, becoming involved in the receipt, depositing, transfer, and disbursement of the client’s funds collected in the course of the client’s businesses [and in doing so opened up a number of bank accounts on behalf of the client]. It appears that the client knew of some of the accounts Coulter had opened on behalf of the client but did not know of others, and in some of the accounts Coulter was the sole authorized signer. Coulter concedes these accounts were not approved lawyer-trust accounts and that they held only funds related to the client and his businesses, yet Coulter transferred funds from or through the client’s accounts to his operating account as payment  of attorney fees. It also appears that in just the final ten months of Coulter’s representation of this client, he administered more than $1 million through the client’s accounts. In those final months, Coulter paid himself $400,000 in fees from the client’s bank accounts. . . . Coulter did not provide any billing invoices to the client after 2008, but two of the complainants are lawyers who were formerly associates in Coulter’s law firm, and they printed a set of invoices from the firm’s billing system in 2011 and provided them to the client. The invoices contained substantial discrepancies that Coulter could not explain. Coulter concedes he did not keep and maintain complete and accurate records of this client’s funds and did not promptly notify the client of Coulter’s receipt of funds in which the client possessed an interest.

And

In addition, Coulter obtained from the client over 100 pieces of art, with an estimated value of over $850,000, as security for the substantial sums (often as much as $200,000 to $300,000) that Coulter claimed the client owed to him for professional services, and kept the art in an unsecure location in his personal office at his law firm.

Several justices dissented. (Mike Frisch)