Clay County Lawyer Suspended for Mishandling Cases
Also Failed to Report Shoplifting Arrests
The Florida Supreme Court this week ordered a 91-day “rehabilitative suspension” temporarily preventing a troubled Clay County woman from practicing law. Attorney Emily Christine Williams was also ordered to pay $1,534 in court costs.
Williams, 47, had been an associate at Your Jacksonville Lawyer, which had offices in Jacksonville, Orange Park and Daytona Beach. The practice closed down after owner Gordon Nicol surrendered his law license; two other associate attorneys were reprimanded and ordered to attend the Florida Bar Association’s Ethics School.
The Bar Association initiated action against Your Jacksonville Lawyer and its attorneys after they botched several cases and overcharged clients. The business model for Your Jacksonville Lawyer included affiliations with lawyer referral services such as LegalShield , RocketLawyer and Legal Club of America.
Williams was cited for incompentent representation in six divorce, estate or guardianship cases. She missed deadlines for submitting pleadings, failed to show up for hearings and was unresponsive when clients tried to communicate with her. In one case she filed a petition that was a “combination of barely legible and entirely illegible documents.”
In a seventh count, the court noted that Williams had also failed to report that she had been twice arrested for shoplifting at stores in Duval County and Ware County, Georgia in spring of 2017. She had been working as an assistant prosecutor in Ware County for just eight weeks when she was arrested the second time.
She was fired from the prosecutor job, but her criminal charges were dismissed after completing a “deferred adjudication program” that included drug rehabilitation, according to the documents filed at the Supreme Court.
The referee in the case initially recommended that Williams serve a 45-day suspension, but the court kicked it back as insufficient. The final 91-day suspension requires proof of rehabilitation prior to reinstatement, including a mental health evaluation.
The court took into account that Your Jacksonville Lawyer had difficulty retaining staff, which forced Williams to take on a greater caseload than she could handle and in areas of law with which she was not familiar.
According to court documents, she had been practicing law since 2009 with an otherwise unblemished record and had not profited in any way from her misdeeds in court. During the period in question, she was also embroiled in child custody case of her own as well as suffering an addiction to pain medication.
Several lawyers had told the court they would be willing to testify to William’s good character, according to the documents.
Shoplifting charges were dropped in both cases. You need to get your story straight?