If your husband tells you he regained his law license, check it out, Georgia lawyer learns
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An Atlanta lawyer has been suspended from law practice for three months as a result of practicing law alongside her husband after believing his claim that he had regained his law license.
The Georgia Supreme Court suspended lawyer Mary Ellen Franklin for three months with automatic reinstatement. The state bar had requested a six-month suspension. The Legal Profession Blog has highlights from the April 26 opinion (PDF).
Franklin had submitted a petition for voluntary discipline and requested a reprimand, though she agreed to accept a suspension of up to six months. She came to attention of disciplinary authorities after a client of her now-deceased husband, Bradley Taylor, alleged Taylor misappropriated an $80,000 settlement while Franklin and Taylor were sharing office space together.
Franklin admitted violating an ethics rule that bars lawyers from maintaining an office with a suspended or disbarred lawyer who represents himself as a lawyer, or who has contact with clients.
Franklin and Taylor shared office space beginning in the fall of 2009, and Taylor registered his practice as the Franklin Taylor Law Group. Franklin asserted that Taylor told her he was reinstated to practice in July 2009 after a six-month suspension, but she admits she never checked the status of her husband’s license, according to the Georgia Supreme Court opinion. The 2009 suspension was for rule violations related to his 2005 misappropriation of client funds.
While Franklin and Taylor were practicing law in the same offices, a friend of Taylor’s hired Taylor, who later settled the client’s claim for $80,000 and apparently misappropriated the funds, according to the Georgia Supreme Court. Franklin’s name was on the March 2011 complaint filed for the client, but she doesn’t remember signing it and alleges that Taylor forged her name on the lawsuit documents.
Franklin’s petition for voluntary discipline said she wasn’t aware of the misappropriation until a new lawyer representing the client summoned her and Taylor to a meeting and threatened them with criminal prosecution. Taylor repaid about $25,000 of the misappropriated money before he died in January 2014.
Franklin cooperated in the ethics probe and has no disciplinary history. She told the ABA Journal on Wednesday that she was unaware of the decision imposing a three-month suspension. “Wow, that isn’t what I expected,” she said, given the bar’s request for a six-month suspension.
“So I only got three months,” Franklin said. “But it’s gone on my record, so it’s sad day.”
“I never had an issue in practicing 28, 29 years,” Franklin said. “I never even had any traffic tickets, I had a perfect record.”
Franklin told the ABA Journal her husband’s January 2009 suspension called for automatic reinstatement, and she wasn’t aware he remained unlicensed because he failed to complete continuing legal education requirements. “This was a very unusual situation,” she said.
Taylor had an aortic dissection after the 2009 suspension, and he died in January 2014 from an aortic aneurysm, Franklin said.
Franklin said she and her husband never practiced law together, though they shared office space. And she didn’t even know the client who hired Taylor and then alleged he misappropriated the settlement. Franklin said she offered in December 2014 to pay the legal fees and remaining balance for the client, but he wasn’t satisfied with the offer. “It was a complete vendetta,” Franklin said.
Franklin said her legal fees in the ethics case amounted to $40,000, and the money would have been better spent on reimbursing the client.
Is Franklin angry with her husband’s actions? “Yes, yes of course,” she said. “But he died, and I wanted to make it right. … I’m angry, but he suffered and he’s dead.”
