Atlanta law firm founder disbarred for abandoning clients

At least four of Taylor’s clients had to spend thousands more hiring new lawyers after losing their cases, in which they had sought to remain in the U.S., the court added.

“Taylor’s failures of diligence, competence, communication, and supervision violate some of an attorney’s most consequential duties,” the court wrote in a unanimous opinion Tuesday. “Taylor abandoned the grievants.”

Taylor, who specializes in immigration cases, has been a member of the State Bar of Georgia since 2002, records show. That’s also when his law firm was established, according to its website.

Around the time he was an attorney of record or lead counsel in the six immigration cases at issue, between 2012 and 2020, Taylor had about 10,000 open cases, the court said.

Taylor’s law firm partner, Jerome Lee, told the court in September that Taylor’s clients were not abandoned or prejudiced.

The firm has implemented new practices to better handle immigration cases, Lee and Taylor said in court filings. They did not immediately comment Tuesday on Taylor’s disbarment.

A representative of the state bar declined to comment.

Citing Taylor’s apparent lack of remorse, the state bar’s disciplinary review board had recommended his disbarment, though a special master appointed to analyze his conduct suggested that he be suspended for between six months and a year.

Taylor ultimately fought for the suspension, and against disbarment, after acknowledging he had violated several professional conduct rules.

In its opinion, the court said Taylor’s overall participation in the disciplinary case against him was “half-hearted at best and obstructive at worst.”

The court said Taylor’s various defense arguments included that his clients’ cases were doomed to fail and that their malpractice complaints against him were improperly motivated by their new attorneys, who were competitors of his. Taylor also partly blamed the immigration court in Atlanta, calling it dysfunctional.

“Taylor’s arguments largely miss the point and do not change our conclusion that disbarment is proper,” the court said.

That Taylor’s victims were particularly vulnerable as they faced removal from America is an aggravating factor, as is the “systemic nature” of his misconduct, the court said. It said he signed up large numbers of clients though his firm had a “modest” number of lawyers and he “exercised minimal, if any, oversight of how those clients’ cases were handled.”

One of the firm’s “ill-advised practices” that fostered Taylor’s failures as an attorney was to file appeals without consulting clients, the court said. It noted how “deeply ironic” it was that Taylor did not file an appeal in the one case at issue in which the client requested and paid for it.