In the Matter of Deborah Lynn Haklin

A woman hired attorney Deborah Lynn Haklin in 2019 to help her adopt five children who were relatives, paying $2,300 of an agreed $2,500 fee. After the client obtained signed documents from the children's biological parents giving up their parental rights, Haklin said she would file them and get a hearing date, but then did nothing and made excuses. When COVID-19 hit, Haklin stopped responding to the client entirely, despite repeated attempts to reach her. Nearly two years later, Haklin resurfaced only to say she was quitting the case, refused to refund the fee, and sent the client insulting text messages. Because Haklin did not respond to the State Bar's disciplinary case, the facts were treated as admitted. A special master recommended a one-year suspension, but the Supreme Court of Georgia found that recommendation too lenient given the seriousness of the abandonment and the aggravating factors involved, and ordered Haklin disbarred instead.

The court held that disbarment, not the one-year suspension recommended below, was the appropriate discipline because Haklin knowingly abandoned her client's legal matter, caused actual injury by keeping the client's fee, and showed multiple aggravating factors with only her clean disciplinary record in mitigation.

The decision protects Georgia clients by showing the State Bar and courts will impose the toughest sanction, disbarment, when a lawyer completely abandons a client's case, keeps unearned fees, and shows no remorse, deterring similar conduct by other attorneys.

Disbarred

1. The special master found Haklin violated several Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct: Rule 1.2(a) (failing to consult with and follow the client's wishes), Rule 1.3 (failing to act with reasonable diligence and effectively abandoning the matter), Rule 1.4(a) (failing to keep the client informed), and Rule 1.5 (charging an unreasonable fee for services never performed).
2. The court applied the American Bar Association Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, which direct considering the duty violated, the lawyer's mental state, the injury caused, and any aggravating or mitigating factors, and found Haklin knowingly violated her duties and caused actual injury through lost fees and abandonment.
3. The court identified multiple aggravating factors, including a dishonest or selfish motive, multiple offenses against the same client, refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, substantial experience practicing law since 1997, and indifference to making restitution, weighed against only one mitigating factor: no prior discipline.
4. The court reviewed the cases the special master relied on to justify a one-year suspension and found them materially different from Haklin's case, since they involved different underlying issues or lacked the same aggravating factors present here.
5. Comparing Haklin's conduct to more analogous recent disbarment cases involving single-client abandonment with similar aggravating factors, the court concluded that disbarment, not suspension, was the appropriate sanction.

• attorney disbarment
• client abandonment
• State Bar of Georgia
• adoption case
• legal fees dispute