Marching Out Of Georgia

An attorney’s third brush with bar discipline has drawn disbarment by the Georgia Supreme Court

We have reviewed the record in these matters and agree that disbarment is the appropriate sanction, particularly given the number of violations, Sakas’s prior disciplinary history, and his failure to engage honestly in the disciplinary process.

He was admitted in 1973 and had failed to respond to multiple complaints

As deemed admitted, the facts show that in multiple matters Sakas purported to represent clients while he was suspended from the practice of law due to a prior disciplinary violation. See Sakas II, 301 Ga. at 51. With regard to two other matters, Sakas was retained by clients but did not perform the agreed-upon work and failed to respond to inquiries from his clients about the status of their matters. When the clients eventually terminated the representations, Sakas failed to return the unearned portion of the fees they had paid. With regard to one of the clients, Sakas initially attempted to refund the retainer to the client with a check that was dishonored by his bank, and later claimed to the State Bar that the client was not entitled to a refund as the retainer had been earned.

With regard to the other client, whose representation Sakas took on while he was suspended from practice, Sakas submitted a response to the Notice of Investigation indicating that he was working on the client’s bankruptcy matter, while the evidence showed that the client was proceeding pro se.

In another matter, Sakas was hired to assist a couple in their efforts to recover an overpayment on their mortgage, but after Sakas failed to take any action on their behalf, they terminated the representation and demanded a refund. When Sakas failed to return their retainer, they filed a petition for fee arbitration. While suspended from the practice of law, Sakas answered the arbitration petition with a letter in which he identified himself as an attorney and made numerous false statements about the type and amount of work he had performed for these clients. Sakas retracted some of those misrepresentations at the fee arbitration hearing, but he still failed to document any work he had actually performed on the clients’ behalf, and was ordered to refund the entire retainer.

In the final matter, a client hired Sakas to handle the appeal of an eviction order obtained by the client’s mortgage lender. Although Sakas filed the appeal, he failed to respond to a dispositive motion and advised his client to ignore the court’s order that the client pay his mortgage payments into the court’s registry. As a result, the court granted the lender’s motion for summary judgment and issued it a writ of possession. Sakas later filed a separate complaint in an attempt to stave off the eviction, but his request for
injunctive relief was denied and his failure to respond to a motion to dismiss resulted in dismissal of the suit. When this client later requested the return of his file, Sakas failed to do so, making excuses that the special master determined not to be credible based on Sakas’s consistent failure to respond to the State Bar in the matter.

(Mike Frisch)