Hell for Hais: St. Louis Family Law Firm Hit with $25,000 Sanction, Discipline Complaints

Summary

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A prominent Clayton family law firm has plunged into scandal over its handling of emailed evidence in a contentious custody dispute.

The case has become the talk of a bitterly divided St. Louis family law bar and features a $25,000 sanction against Hais, Hais, Goldberger & Coyne, one of the highest-profile firms in the field locally, for being in receipt of hundreds of emails between opposing counsel and his client.

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Extract

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Hell for Hais: St. Louis Family Law Firm Hit with $25,000 Sanction, Discipline Complaints

The emotions are running high, so high in fact that some of the on-the-record allegations of a lawyer no longer involved in the case are not printable without risking a libel suit.

St. Louis County Circuit Judge Barbara Wallace detailed her own concerns about the lawyers' conduct when she levied the sanctions in a March 15 judgment.

"The Court is shocked at the conduct of the Hais Firm, primarily that of lead counsel Susan Hais," Wallace wrote.

The judge went on to characterize the firm's actions as wrong, even if not necessarily illegal.

"Clearly, the credible evidence, and very specifically this response by [Susan Hais] herself, indicates knowledge of the content of the emails, possession, rather than deletion of the emails, intent to use the emails to 'hurt' petitioner, and a consciousness that there was something just not right about having the emails of petitioner and his attorneys," Wallace wrote in that judgment.

Heate...

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