In the Matter of Michael Frederick Greene

Michael Frederick Greene, a Georgia lawyer since 1993, took money from three separate clients and then failed to do the work he was hired for. In one case he was paid $10,000 to represent a young woman in a criminal case but stopped responding, missed court dates, and left her without a lawyer while she sat in jail; in another he took $15,000 and then vanished after a client was released on bond; in a third he took a $500 flat fee to investigate a client's father's prison conditions and never completed the work or gave a refund. The State Bar of Georgia filed a Notice of Discipline seeking disbarment. Because Greene never responded or challenged the charges, the underlying facts were treated as admitted and he lost the right to a hearing. The Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the record and had to decide whether disbarment, the harshest possible punishment, fit this pattern of misconduct. The court agreed with the State Bar and ordered Greene disbarred.

The court held that Greene's abandonment of three clients, his charging fees without performing the work, his failure to communicate, and his refusal to participate in the disciplinary process violated multiple Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct and warranted disbarment as the presumptive sanction for knowing, repeated client neglect.

Clients who paid Greene thousands of dollars for legal help were left stranded, one while incarcerated, without recourse from him. The ruling reinforces that Georgia lawyers who abandon clients and dodge Bar investigations will lose their license, protecting future clients and preserving trust in the legal system.

Disbarred

1. Because Greene never filed a Notice of Rejection to the Bar's Notice of Discipline, he was in default, meaning the facts alleged against him were treated as true and he lost his right to an evidentiary hearing.
2. The court reviewed the admitted facts showing Greene took payment in three separate matters, then stopped communicating with clients, missed scheduled court hearings, and in one case failed to convey a client's willingness to cooperate with prosecutors, harming her case.
3. The court applied the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, a framework courts use to decide appropriate discipline, and found that Standard 4.4, which calls for disbarment when a lawyer knowingly fails to perform services and causes serious injury to a client, applied because Greene knowingly neglected client matters and caused financial and personal harm.
4. The court considered aggravating factors including Greene's prior disciplinary suspension for similar misconduct, his pattern of repeated abandonment across multiple clients, his experience as a lawyer since 1993, and his bad-faith refusal to cooperate with the Bar's investigation, while finding no supported mitigating factors in the record.
5. Relying on prior cases where the court disbarred attorneys for similarly abandoning multiple clients and ignoring Bar Rule 4-104 style proceedings, the court concluded disbarment was consistent with how it has handled comparable misconduct in the past.

• attorney disbarment
• client abandonment
• State Bar of Georgia
• legal malpractice
• fee disputes