In the Matter of Curtis Lee Allen

Curtis Lee Allen has been a member of the State Bars of both Georgia and Florida since 1994, but he moved to Florida right after law school and practiced law only there. After Allen made unprofessional and argumentative remarks to insureds, their lawyers, and opposing parties while representing an insurance company in two Florida cases, the Florida Bar suspended him for ten days and put him on probation. Because Georgia and Florida share a bar membership arrangement, the State Bar of Georgia sought matching discipline against him here. Allen first asked the Supreme Court of Georgia to suspend him for ten days retroactive to his Florida suspension, but the court rejected that request because he had not provided the Florida paperwork or proven he had stopped practicing law in Georgia during his suspension. In this amended petition, Allen supplied the missing documents and explained he had never actually practiced law in Georgia at all. The court accepted the amended petition and imposed the same ten-day suspension, backdated so that it was already served.

When a lawyer licensed in Georgia and another state is disciplined in that other state, the Supreme Court of Georgia will impose substantially similar reciprocal discipline, retroactive to the date the other state's suspension began, once the lawyer documents the underlying discipline and shows he did not practice law in Georgia during the suspension period.

The case shows how Georgia coordinates discipline with other states' bars when a lawyer is licensed in more than one place, ensuring misconduct sanctioned elsewhere carries consequences in Georgia too, even for lawyers who never practiced there.

Petition for voluntary reciprocal discipline accepted; ten-day suspension, nunc pro tunc; reinstated

1. The court explained that a lawyer seeking a suspension backdated to an earlier out-of-state suspension (called nunc pro tunc, meaning the suspension is treated as having already taken effect) must prove he voluntarily stopped practicing law, when that stoppage began, and that he met all related ethical duties.
2. In an earlier ruling on Allen's first petition, the court found he had failed to attach the Florida disciplinary documents and had not shown he stopped practicing in Georgia during his Florida suspension, so it rejected that petition.
3. In the amended petition, Allen supplied the missing Florida documents confirming the facts of his discipline and explained he had never practiced law in Georgia at all, meaning there was no Georgia practice to have stopped.
4. Because the State Bar of Georgia confirmed it found no record of Allen practicing in Georgia and supported his request, the court found the record now supported backdating the suspension to the date his Florida suspension took effect.
5. Relying on precedent allowing suspensions identical to out-of-state discipline even when Georgia does not normally use ten-day suspensions, the court concluded that granting the nunc pro tunc suspension and immediate reinstatement was appropriate.

• attorney discipline
• reciprocal discipline
• State Bar of Georgia
• Florida Bar suspension
• nunc pro tunc