Disorderly Conduct: learning through others' bad behavior

As legal professionals, I know we all have the same determination to avoid disciplinary action. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s true of the Smokeball user base, since smart lawyers use Smokeball and all that. But with some folks, I guess you can’t be too sure.

Disorderly Conduct is a series that I’ll be posting on alternating Wednesdays until some of my scandal-loving readers here decide they want to take it over. (It’s a post every other Wednesday about attorneys behaving badly! It might just be the most fun thing you write all week!) 

The purpose is not to make fun of attorneys. I don’t believe in kicking people when they’re down, nor do I believe in judgmental gossip for no purpose, no benefit. This series has very specific goals in mind, because we respect our lawyers and legal staff and, instead of wasting your time, we intend to provide something you find valuable, in addition to our product. I hope we can further refine and develop these goals in conversation, because we can definitely carve out positive learnings from others’ troubles and keep being a credit to this profession as your work continues to hold communities together.

1. “There but for the grace of God go I.” This is, of course, a non-denominational and non-theistic approach. Sub in Flying Spaghetti Monster if you like. 🦑 Some attorneys are bad and act with malice; other attorneys are burnt out and make careless mistakes. That distinction can be important.
2. Pattern Recognition Across Cases. One story is an anecdote, but when we look at the aggregate, themes appear. 📊 These themes are usually called the Rules of Professional Conduct, but, hey, some of us learn through stories. 
3. Systems-Failure. It’s not always on the attorney; what systems, if they had existed, would have caught this earlier? Was this a tech failure of the docketing software? A firm culture that doesn’t dignify burnout? Let’s look at our systems and our guardrails. 🚦
4. Bystander/Staff Empowerment. Chances are, a paralegal or junior associate saw that something was off. 🔍 What could they have done, and what made it hard for them to do it? A lot of the time, legal staff have the least power, but the earliest visibility. They are our front line defense and their instincts deserve recognition. 
5. Destigmatizing Struggle. You’re a legal professional and a human, not superman. A meaningful chunk of attorney discipline comes down to burnout, substance use issues, depression, or financial desperation. You are not alone. Not only are there resources, but you’d be surprised at how quickly your colleagues might jump to help you. Let’s model that, and use these stories to exercise our compassion muscle. 
6. Free Ethics (non)CLE! Normally, I would leave this to our incredible ​@Jordan Turk who handles our webinars and CLEs. You might remember Jordan from such award-winning CLEs as “Case Calendaring: Hope Is Not a Reminder System,” and “Reasonable Person Standard: Couldn’t Be Me.” I might have Jordan guest star occasionally and share her great stories with us, but I sadly can’t offer CLE credit. Still, disciplinary opinions are underused teaching tools. We can IRAC this (issue, rule, misconduct, outcome, lesson) like we used to, or we can gather to discuss what we learn from these.

If you have a firm newsletter or email blast and you think some posts in this series can be used for that, just ping me! Let’s chat! I can blurb it for you, or whatever you are thinking.

Maybe this won’t be useful or entertaining to anyone. But maybe there will be something here that helps an overwhelmed paralegal, a baby lawyer dealing with imposter syndrome, or a managing partner responsible for dealing with subordinates’ misconduct. If it’s not useful at all, tell me. But the catch is that you then have to help me put out something that is. We made Smokeball to help our legal professionals; we made Community to collaborate with you, listen to you, and learn from you. I know I post a lot here, but I am not any more of an expert than you, reading this. I would love for y’all to jump into the deep end with me and join discussions and start some of your own. Including about attorneys behaving badly. 

So while we are not trying to dogpile on anyone, sometimes, when you’ve had a bad day, and the judge gave your client the whole “you have a very good lawyer” speech before he denied every single part your motion, and your Chill Paralegal isn’t speaking to you because you’re on round 24 of edits to a routine motion and she just needs you to approve it, and it’s a full moon which means several of your clients got re-arrested somehow, you just need a spot to sit down, take a breath, and be like, well, at least I’m not that guy. 

This week’s That Guy is a 66yo attorney out of Florida who was admitted the year I was born. And Florida Lawyer (frequently counsel for the illustrious Florida Man, I hear) had a problem. 

You see, Florida Lawyer was suspended. In 2022, the Florida Bar filed a complaint that alleged that Florida Lawyer failed to keep his clients informed and failed to act diligently and competently on their behalf. The complaint further stated that he had failed to respond to multiple orders, resulting in the dismissal of three of his clients’ cases. He appealed the recommendation of a 1-year suspension and instead received a 3-year suspension. D’oh. This was back in 2024. 

Now, ignoring that this was a pattern and a series of choices, client communication is something that can trip even good lawyers up. Sometimes, you think you’ve communicated everything properly and repeatedly, but the client does not agree. Sometimes, the client blows you up every day and sending the call to voicemail now and then is a mental health preservation method. Sometimes, you can’t delegate the daily calls to “check in” to your Chill Paralegal anymore, because the client really needs you, specifically, to hold their hand. We all know the drill. 

But Florida Lawyer, unfortunately for him and his license, didn't stop there. 

So, in 2026, he was still serving out his 3-year suspension, and there was light at the end of the tunnel. Almost done! Just had to sit tight, keep his head down, and definitely not do anything that would make his situation worse.

Colleagues, he did a thing that made his situation worse.

The Florida Bar learned that he'd been secretly advising and ghost-writing bankruptcy documents for former clients in the Middle District of Florida. He outlined in detail the arguments the client should make to the judge in their pro se bankruptcy matter. 

And then came the cherry on top: he told the client that if the judge asked, they should say AI helped write the filings. And the client ‘fessed up to everything. (As our criminal defense colleagues can attest, this happens far more often than we would like.)

Unsurprisingly, the Bar was not charmed. Florida Lawyer received a disciplinary revocation of his license, which is a permanent disbarment. 

There’s a real “how many screwups are in this one screwup” quality to this story (“it’s levels to it; you and I know,” per the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Kendrick Lamar), so let’s break it down.

The Original Sin: we talked about this, and how easy it can be sometimes to let client communication fall to the wayside. We don’t like to admit it, but I’m sure most lawyers remember sending a client to voicemail or ignoring an email for a day too long because you just couldn’t with this crap. It’s human. Here, it was more of a pattern. Client communication has to be really lacking if you get suspended in part for it. There are off-ramps on the way to that destination, though. I remember a client blowing me up every day during a really exhausting two week long jury trial, and halfway through I messaged him and was like, look, I’m in trial right now, there is nothing happening in your matter this week and if that changes, you’ll be the first to know, and if I was on trial with you, you’d want my focus to be on you instead of a case that is in a holding posture for the week, right? And that was enough to quell the situation, and I picked that case back up as soon as trial was behind me. Florida Lawyer, however, dropped the ball hard enough that three clients’ cases were dismissed. That’s not one missed email or 2-3 days of ignored calls; it’s a pattern of missed orders and radio silence, the kind that quietly wrecks people’s actual legal outcomes while they’re none of the wiser, and sometimes with prejudice/past the statute of limitations. 

The Gritty Sequel No One Asked For: Florida Lawyer was doing legal work while suspended, which is like getting your license taken away for reckless driving and then deciding the responsible move is to keep driving, just … more secretly. I can put myself in a suspended lawyer’s shoes and try to imagine this. I’m a lawyer, I’ve devoted years and years of study and invasive financial and ethical probing to get my license, I’ve honed my craft and helped lots of clients, and suddenly I can’t earn a living that way anymore. I can understand the panic, the grief, the fear and desperation over lost earnings, the impotent and futile rage. But many lawyers either take up a side hustle, take a leave of absence, or take on a junior role in a law firm that does not involve actual practice, all so that their loss of licensure remains temporary instead of permanent. Florida Lawyer was drafting and advising, as a practicing lawyer would. If I had to imagine this in the kindest light to his perspective, I’d say that at 66 years old, it can be really tough to face the loss of identity that comes with a loss of a law license. But, come on, man. There’s a big difference between 3 years and a lifetime, and I would grit my teeth and get through those 3 years of that suspension, then put on a great case for how I’ve rehabilitated myself. 

The Plot Twist: In addition to these choices, Florida Lawyer advised and coached a client to lie to a federal judge. My empathy and imagination can’t stretch far enough to accommodate that. There’s just no excuse for that. Especially not for an experienced attorney. I’m sure lying to a judge happens way more often than is known, but when it is confronted in this way, and especially under these circumstances, revocation makes sense. Just throw it all away at that point (as Florida Lawyer basically did.) Asking your client to cover for you, hide your assistance, blame the robot, on the record to an Article 3 judge, is objectively wild. How many times have we, as practicing lawyers, done the opposite? Fallen on our sword in order to protect the client. I wonder if it occurred to the attorney that he was also violating the part of his oath of office and rules of conduct that instructed him to always protect the client, because he was putting the client and his matter in jeopardy by having the client protect the lawyer. That’s never a position for us to be in. We protect the clients, not the other way around.

We don’t need a law degree to take something useful from this. Unfortunately, these problems in the profession happen. Usually, I’m on the other side of it, defending lawyers against the ARDC (here in IL) when a client complains. But I very much believe in protecting clients from those of us lawyers who behave badly. 

So, fellow denizens of the legal industrial complex, this is the part where we stop pointing and start taking notes, because this story is basically a highlight reel of "don't do this" for anyone with a bar card, a paralegal certification, or a desk anywhere near a courthouse.

1. A suspension is not a “pause.” It’s a full stop, and everyone in the office needs to treat it that way. If someone in your firm gets suspended, that doesn’t mean that their files stay open just in case, or that they can take a client call just to be nice. It means zero legal advice, zero drafting, zero anything that smells like the practice of law, full stop, until further order of court. If you’re a paralegal or office manager, you may be the one who actually has to enforce this policy, as awkward as that is. Do it anyway. Take it as free reign to bully an attorney and have the law on your side. It’s a lot less awkward than testifying about it later. Additionally, if the suspended lawyer is able to stay on at the firm and comply with these rules, their coworkers are able to submit truthful letters of support regarding their compliance if there is a future hearing for reinstatement. A stack of letters from officemates saying that the lawyer held off from practicing, as difficult as that was, is powerful evidence.
2. Ghostwriting for pro se clients is a UPL problem. Even when your heart’s in the right place. Even when you have bills that need to be paid. It’s easy to walk yourself into this by thinking you’re just helping and they're the ones filing, but if judges and disciplinary bodies don’t see it that way, neither should you. This is UPL dressed up as generosity, and it’s best to avoid the whole mess. 
3. Never advise a client to misrepresent who did the work. This is what took Florida Lawyer from suspended ➡ done for good. Coaching a client to make a false statement to a federal judge is not something a lawyer can easily come back from, nor should they. If you see it happening around you, put a stop to it if you can and/or check your state’s rules and determine if it’s something you need to report. 
4. Document everything, especially when someone’s license status changes. If you’re managing a team, a caseload, a former colleague’s files, anything, keep a clean, dated record of who was told what and when regarding any status change in license or employment. A lot of case management software has fields for that, or at the very least a memo function where you can write timestamped notes. Being able to say “here’s a memo we sent the day it happened” is a great way to protect the firm and yourself. 
5. Build a system for checking bar status. We all have a stake in catching this early. A routine bar status check on new hires, contract help, consultants, opposing counsels, legal experts who hold law degrees, etc, should be a routine part of administering the file. It’s thankfully not super common for these things to happen, but as we can amply see from disciplinary records, these things do happen. We don’t want them happening to you. 
6. Read the disciplinary opinions. They’re a free CLE, basically. Here are the dockets in this case (1, 2). I will not be naming attorneys directly but if I have the record, I will link to it. Every state bar publishes these in some form, and they’re a great teaching tool because they show exactly how “one bad decision” compounds into “career over do not collect $200.” Circulate the interesting and relevant ones to your firm, talk about them at lunch or in the last 10 minutes of a weekly team meeting. Use that as an opportunity to giggle about the craziness of it all, but also to check your systems and guardrails and remind colleagues that you’re all there to help each other catch things before they become problems. 

Your turn! 

I want to hear your take in the comments, please. Have you ever had to fall on your own sword so that you wouldn’t put a client in a precarious situation? I know I have. I want your stories, and I’ll share mine below, too, if you join me. Or, if you don’t want to talk about that, how would you have tried to help Florida Lawyer if you were a colleague of equal or lesser title than him at a law firm?