“A Troubling Pattern”

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has annulled the license of an attorney admitted in 1995, sustaining findings of 134 rule violations. 

The ODC obtained information that Mr. Morgan had eighteen days of billing in excess of eighteen hours a day submitted for payments from the Public Defender Services (“Public Defender”)…

Mr. Morgan responded that some of this time was work he would perform on the weekends which was then billed to a weekday. Further, he noted that some of the time was “reconstructed,” and that he had actually underbilled many of his cases. Mr. Morgan asserted that any billing errors were due to misidentifications by the billing attorney and clerical errors on duplicate entries.

After Mr. Morgan corrected some of the billing entries, the Public Defender provided information that showed three days still consisted of eighteen hours of services billed, and two days were between fifteen and eighteen hours of billed services. Moreover, one day showed a billing of nearly twenty-nine hours for that day—which is impossible considering there are only twenty-four hours in a day.

There were also a number of client complaints, for example

Mr. Norwood retained Mr. Morgan for representation in multiple criminal cases, and in turn, paid Mr. Morgan an $8,000.00 retainer fee. Mr. Norwood alleged that Mr. Morgan failed to properly represent him, and as such, he terminated Mr. Morgan ashis counsel. Upon his termination, Mr. Morgan failed to provide the client file to Mr. Norwood, and failed to refund the unearned portion of his retainer fee. A former employee of Mr. Morgan provided a statement averring that Mr. Morgan falsified the invoice for his work in Mr. Norwood’s case. A review of Mr. Morgan’s IOLTA account did not show a deposit of the $8,000.00 retainer fee when it was paid, and two months later the IOLTA account had a negative balance. Mr. Morgan also failed to respond to two letters from Disciplinary Counsel…

Lori Ann McKinney hired Mr. Morgan to represent her husband in a criminal case. She alleged that Mr. Morgan failed to communicate with them and failed to properly handle the case. Ms. McKinney also sought Mr. Morgan’s representation in a medical malpractice case, which he allegedly did not pursue and never told the client that he was not going to pursue. Mr. Morgan is charged with failing to act diligently, failing to expedite both cases, failing to communicate with his clients about both cases, failing to keep records of the funds paid to him, and failing to provide the client file. 

From a former employee

Mr. Bostic is a former employee of Mr. Morgan. He alleged that Mr. Morgan withheld money from his paycheck for taxes and insurance but did not pay those funds to the proper agencies. He also alleged that Mr. Morgan wrote him a worthless check for his wages. Additionally, Mr. Bostic stated that Mr. Morgan’s law firm was operating under a false name—the law firm name is “E. Lavoyd Morgan, Jr. and Associates,” but there were not associates at the firm. Multiple other former employees attested that there were no associate attorneys working at the firm.

The court on sanction

While this Court finds that Mr. Morgan’s misappropriation of funds is sufficient to warrant disbarment on its own, we would be remiss to ignore the numerosity and severity of Mr. Morgan’s other instances of misconduct. Mr. Morgan violated nineteen different rules of the Rules of Professional Conduct, with a total of 134 separate instances of misconduct. Beyond his financial mishandlings, Mr. Morgan also committed violations regarding his competency, his diligence, his communication with clients, his failure to obtain written fee agreements, his failure to provide client files to clients when requested, his failure to expedite litigation, his lack of candor and honesty, his failure to ensure employees followed his ethical obligations, his failure to not mislead with the name of his firm, his failure to respond to Disciplinary Counsel, his failure to supervise his employees, and his engagement in conduct that was prejudicial to the administration of justice. This is not a scenario involving a singular act of misconduct, but rather, this is a troubling pattern of repeated, egregious behavior.

…we find that the sheer volume of these violations—in conjunction with their egregious nature— warrants the annulment of Mr. Morgan’s law license.

(Mike Frisch)