Attorney Discipline
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 0040 |
Attorney Discipline Summaries
June 22, 2022, through July 6, 2022
BY LEIGH BURGESS
Disbarments
Sherri Len Washington[1]
1253 Commercial Drive Suite A
Conyers, GA 30094
Admitted to the Bar 2007
On June 22, 2022, the Supreme Court of Georgia disbarred attorney Sherri Len Washington (State Bar No. 107007) from the practice of law in Georgia for her multiple violations of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct in connection with three separate client matters following a report and recommendation of the State Disciplinary Review Board. Despite being personally served with the formal complaint, Washington failed to timely answer or otherwise respond, and the special master found her to be in default such that the factual allegations and the disciplinary violations charged in the formal complaint were deemed admitted and recommended that Washington be disbarred from the practice of law. Thereafter, Washington hired counsel, who filed objections and initiated a late defense before the Review Board, but counsel later withdrew and Washington failed to further support her objections, which resulted in the Review Board's correctly declining to consider the objections and essentially adopting the special master's report and recommendation as to discipline. Washington filed no exceptions to the Review Board's report and recommendation, and the Court agreed that the circumstances of the matter warranted disbarment.
The facts, as deemed admitted by Washington's default show the following. With regard to State Disciplinary Board Docket (SDBD) No. 7444, a client retained Washington to represent her in a simple divorce case in March 2017. The client sought a division of her husband's 401(k) retirement account, temporary and permanent spousal support, and division of marital assets, and she asked Washington to file the divorce as quickly as possible because she feared her husband would take steps to remove her from his health insurance and to request a protective order because she feared for her safety. Washington failed to file the divorce promptly, which led to her client's loss of her health insurance, and also failed to seek a protective order. As the case proceeded, Washington failed to keep her client advised of the status of the case, failed to respond to court notices, failed to exchange mandatory discovery, failed to attend the pretrial status conference, failed to provide the required domestic relations financial affidavit, failed to complete the consolidated pretrial order required by the court, failed to respond to requests from opposing counsel for this information and failed to participate in a conference call with the court on the subject of outstanding discovery and the incomplete pretrial order. Eventually, the case was set for trial on Oct. 27, 2017, but neither Washington nor her client appeared for the court date. The trial court granted the divorce on terms which were very unfavorable to Washington's client.
Throughout this time period, Washington's client was not aware of the status of her case because Washington would not respond to any of the client's numerous calls or emails. The client discovered the final judgment of divorce on the clerk's website. When the client sent Washington a screenshot of the divorce decree via text message, Washington acknowledged the text but did not call her client. Instead, Washington immediately filed a motion to reconsider the divorce judgment, which...
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