In THE MATTER OF IAN ZIMMERMAN (Five Cases)

Ian Zimmerman, a Georgia lawyer admitted to the State Bar in 2011, represented several clients in personal injury cases. In multiple instances he received settlement checks, cashed them, but failed to pay clients or their medical providers the money owed, ignored repeated requests for information, and in one case kept working a case and negotiating with an insurance company after his client fired him. Five separate complaints were filed against him with the State Bar. Although he claimed he had filed timely answers to the complaints, he never proved it, and a Special Master found him in default, meaning he was treated as having admitted all the facts and violations charged. Zimmerman did not challenge that finding. The Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the record and agreed that disbarment, the removal of his license to practice law, was the appropriate punishment given the number and seriousness of the violations.

The court held that disbarment was warranted because Zimmerman, by defaulting on five bar complaints, was deemed to have admitted violating rules requiring diligence, communication, safekeeping of client property, and honesty, and his conduct involved knowing conversion of funds and dishonesty causing actual injury to clients and third parties.

The decision removes a lawyer from practice who repeatedly withheld settlement money owed to injury victims and their medical providers, protecting future clients from similar harm and reinforcing that Georgia attorneys who mishandle client funds and ignore bar discipline proceedings face losing their law license.

Disbarred

1. The Special Master found Zimmerman in default after he failed to prove he filed timely answers to the complaints, which under bar rules means he is deemed to have admitted the facts and rule violations alleged in each of the five cases.
2. Applying the American Bar Association's Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, which weigh the duty violated, the lawyer's mental state, the harm caused, and aggravating or mitigating factors, the Special Master found Zimmerman violated his duty of diligence and his duty to safeguard client property, and acted with knowing dishonesty.
3. The Special Master concluded that Zimmerman's clients and third parties, including medical providers and another law firm, suffered actual injury because he kept settlement funds that were owed to them and misrepresented that he would pay.
4. The Special Master identified numerous aggravating factors, including a prior disciplinary admonition, a dishonest motive, a pattern of repeated misconduct across five matters, obstruction of the disciplinary process, and refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, with no mitigating factors found.
5. The Supreme Court of Georgia compared the case to prior decisions disbarring attorneys who defaulted on similar complaints involving neglect and conversion of client funds, and found disbarment consistent with that precedent.

• attorney disbarment
• settlement funds
• State Bar of Georgia
• client neglect
• default judgment