Waiting For PayPal
The Georgia Supreme Court has accepted and imposed a public reprimand on an attorney who was the subject of three complaints.
One matter involved neglect; the other two were escrow account issues
Woodward admits that, at all relevant times, he maintained an IOLTA trust account; that on July 23, 2018, when implementing a one-time transfer of $500 in earned fees from that account into his operating account, he “inadvertently set the transfer to be a recurring weekly transfer”; that the following week, the inadvertent recurring transfer caused an overdraft in his trust account; and that he later deposited money to resolve the overdraft. The following year, in April 2019, a check was presented for payment against his trust account, but the account balance was insufficient to cover the check. With regard to the 2019 incident, Woodward asserts that he “believed that [a] PayPal transaction payment from the client had already processed,” whereas the “PayPal transaction did not process until after the check was presented.” Woodward once again deposited funds into the trust account to resolve the overdraft.
Mitigation
He explains that, during his representation of those clients, he was “called away for military obligations,” which caused some delays in the trial.
He was censured in 2019 in Tennessee
Finally, Woodward generally asserts that he is currently deployed abroad as part of his military service; that he has “proudly served” in the Army for 23 years; that he “overwhelmingly” has been able to “manage the demands of the military with [his] law practice”; that he understands the “seriousness of this situation”; and that he will “take steps to improve [his] ability to meet the demands of both the military and the legal profession.”
The court
We have reviewed the record in this case, and we agree to accept Woodward’s petition for voluntary discipline. Our conclusion likely would have been different if there was any evidence of additional violations or misconduct on Woodward’s part, but given the specific circumstances of this case, we believe that a public reprimand is an adequate discipline to impose.
(Mike Frisch)