In the Matter of Cory Howerton Fleming

Cory Howerton Fleming was a lawyer licensed in both Georgia and South Carolina who represented the family of a woman who died after being injured at the home of South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh. Fleming helped negotiate two insurance settlements worth over $4 million for the woman's estate, but he admitted that the paperwork he filed with the probate court contained false statements about legal fees and expenses, and that he sent large sums of settlement money to Murdaugh based on Murdaugh's claim that the funds would go into annuity accounts for the woman's sons. Murdaugh instead stole the money. After South Carolina suspended Fleming's license and Georgia followed with a reciprocal emergency suspension, Fleming filed a petition asking the Supreme Court of Georgia to accept his voluntary surrender of his Georgia law license rather than face a full disciplinary hearing. He admitted violating seven rules of professional conduct, including failing to communicate with his client's representative and allowing a client's fraud to compromise his professional judgment. The court accepted the petition, treating it as equivalent to disbarment.

The court held that Fleming's admitted conduct, including filing false settlement statements, letting a conflicted third party control settlement funds, and failing to properly account for client money, established violations of seven Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct sufficient to warrant the most serious sanction available, and accepted his voluntary surrender of his license as tantamount to disbarment.

The decision permanently bars Fleming from practicing law in Georgia and signals to other attorneys that mishandling client trust funds, filing false settlement paperwork, and letting a third party control settlement proceeds will draw the harshest possible bar sanction.

Voluntary surrender of license accepted (tantamount to disbarment)

1. Because this case arrived as a petition for voluntary discipline rather than a full disciplinary proceeding, the court's review was limited to evaluating Fleming's own admissions in his petition and the State Bar's response, without independently determining the full underlying facts.
2. The court found that Fleming's admitted conduct, including misrepresenting legal fees and expenses in probate filings and disbursement sheets, established violations of Rule 1.4 (a) (3) (failing to keep a client informed) and Rule 1.5 (c) (1) (lacking a proper written contingent fee agreement).
3. The court concluded that Fleming's arrangement allowing Murdaugh, a defendant in the underlying lawsuit, to receive and control settlement funds created a conflict of interest and misuse of client information, violating Rule 1.7 (a) (conflicts requiring informed consent) and Rule 1.8 (b) (using client information to the client's disadvantage).
4. The court determined that Fleming's mishandling and false documentation of settlement proceeds held in his trust account, known as an IOLTA account, violated Rule 1.15 (I) (c), which requires promptly notifying clients of funds received and properly accounting for and delivering them.
5. The court held that allowing Murdaugh to direct or interfere with Fleming's professional judgment violated Rule 5.4 (c), and that the dishonesty, fraud, and misrepresentation running throughout the settlement filings violated Rule 8.4 (a) (4).
6. Citing prior cases where attorneys who committed similar fraud or mishandled client funds were disbarred or allowed to surrender their licenses, the court concluded that disbarment, achieved here through voluntary surrender, was the appropriate and most serious available sanction.

• attorney disbarment
• Alex Murdaugh scandal
• settlement fund misappropriation
• voluntary surrender of law license
• trust account violations