Attorney Discipline Summaries

• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 4 Pg. 0037
• Publication year: 2024
• Pages: 0037
• Year: 2024

Attorney Discipline Summaries Vol. 29 No. 4 Pg. 37 Georgia Bar Journal February 2024

On Nov. 7, 2023, the Supreme Court of Georgia accepted the petition for voluntary surrender of license by attorney Cory Howerton Fleming (State Bar No. 292955), which is tantamount to disbarment. On Oct. 8, 2021, the Supreme Court of South Carolina, where Fleming was also admitted to practice, placed him on interim suspension pursuant to Rule 17 (b) which allows the Supreme Court of South Carolina to place a lawyer on interim suspension "[u]pon receipt of sufficient evidence demonstrating that a lawyer poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the public or to the administration of justice." After he notified the State Bar of Georgia of this, the Supreme Court of Georgia similarly placed Fleming on an emergency suspension pursuant to Bar Rule 4-108 (a) (emergency suspension) and Rule 9.4 (b) (reciprocal discipline).

In his petition, Fleming stated that in February 2018, a woman sustained injuries at the home of R. Alexander Murdaugh, a lawyer then-licensed in South Carolina; that Murdaugh contacted Fleming asking that he represent the woman, or, if she passed away, her estate; that the woman later died from her injuries leaving two sons; and that one of the sons was appointed as the personal representative of the woman's probate estate. At the relevant time, Murdaugh had two insurance policies providing coverage for this type of incident: Lloyd's of London through which he had $505,000 in coverage and Nautilus Insurance Group through which he had excess coverage of an additional $5 million. At some point in 2018, Fleming apparently filed suit against Murdaugh—presumably on behalf of the woman's estate—and in November 2018, Lloyd's tendered its policy limits to settle these claims against Murdaugh. Fleming did not inform his client about this fact, however; instead, in December 2018, Fleming allowed the woman's son to be replaced by Chad Westerndorf as the personal representative of the estate and then petitioned the probate court to approve the wrongful death settlement with Lloyd's for a payment of $505,000. Fleming admitted that the petition detailed payments of $166,000 to his law firm for legal fees and $11,500 for "prosecution expenses"; that those figures were misrepresentations; and that there were no legitimate prosecution expenses. In December 2018, the probate court held a hearing and approved the settlement.

Then, in March 2019, Murdaugh, Fleming, Westendorf and John Grantland, a lawyer representing Nautilus, participated in mediation which ulti-

insurance companies. Fleming acknowledged that the settlement statement presented to the court in this instance, like the petition submitted in December 2018, contained false representations. He further admitted that the disbursement sheet prepared after the second settlement contained false statements.

After both settlements, Murdaugh requested that Fleming make the net settlement proceeds check payable to "Forge," apparently explaining that he had created structured settlement or annuity accounts for the woman's surviving sons with Michael E. Gunn of Forge Consulting, LLC. In 2019, checks payable to "Forge" were issued from Fleming's IOLTA account in a total amount exceeding $3.4 million. Fleming asserted that he gave the checks to Murdaugh, allegedly because Murdaugh advised he would "hand deliver" the checks to Gunn. Instead, Murdaugh apparently converted the funds to his own benefit. In addition to delivering a large portion of the settlement proceeds to Murdaugh, Fleming asserted that he paid Westendorf at least $20,000 for his services as personal representative, and between May 2019 and October 2020, Fleming withdrew an additional $26,200 from the IOLTA account, falsely documenting these withdrawals as expenses of litigation. Although it was clear that the money was removed from the IOLTA account and that it was not used for the purposes it was supposed to be used for, Fleming did not specify whether he retained the $26,200 for his own benefit or...