In the Matter of Timothy Walter Boyd

A Florida father hired Georgia lawyer Timothy Boyd to help him serve as administrator of his deceased daughter's estate, including handling insurance checks and the sale of her home. Boyd never opened a proper estate account, instead moving estate money through unauthorized bank accounts he alone controlled, wrote checks payable to cash, and took an unapproved $14,397.50 fee from the home sale proceeds without telling the client. When the client and his daughter's friend discovered the missing funds and unauthorized accounts, Boyd never fully accounted for the money or repaid the unearned fees. Because Boyd failed to answer the State Bar's formal complaint, the facts were deemed admitted. A special master found he violated multiple Rules of Professional Conduct and recommended disbarment. The Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the record and agreed, ordering Boyd removed from the practice of law.

The court held that disbarment is the appropriate sanction because Boyd knowingly converted estate funds, deceived his client and a third party for personal benefit, and committed multiple rule violations with aggravating factors including prior discipline and a vulnerable victim, and no mitigating factors were found.

The decision protects Georgia clients, especially grieving families handling estates, by reinforcing that lawyers must keep client funds separate, disclose fees, and account for money they control. It also signals that repeated misconduct and concealment will result in the harshest bar sanction available.

Disbarred

1. The special master applied the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, a framework courts use to decide how severely to punish attorney misconduct, finding disbarment appropriate for knowingly converting client property, failing to perform services, deceiving a client for personal benefit, and violating professional duties for personal gain.
2. Because Boyd failed to answer the State Bar's formal complaint after being properly served, the factual allegations in that complaint, including his mishandling of estate funds and unauthorized fees, were deemed admitted under State Bar rules.
3. The court found no factors that would lessen the punishment, but identified several aggravating factors: Boyd's prior disciplinary history of an admonition and two reprimands, a dishonest motive, a pattern of multiple offenses, obstruction of the disciplinary process, the vulnerability of an elderly grieving parent as the victim, and Boyd's substantial legal experience.
4. The court compared Boyd's conduct to prior Georgia disbarment cases involving similar violations of duties to communicate, act with diligence, and avoid dishonesty, concluding that disbarment was consistent with how the court has treated comparable misconduct.
5. Weighing the admitted facts, the applicable sanction standards, and the absence of mitigating circumstances against the aggravating factors, the court concluded that disbarment, rather than a lesser sanction, was warranted.

• attorney disbarment
• estate mismanagement
• unauthorized fees
• State Bar of Georgia
• trust account violations