In the Matter of Mylee McKinney

Mylee McKinney, a Georgia lawyer who represented clients in child custody and divorce cases, faced disbarment after the State Bar accused her of abandoning nine clients and mishandling their cases. She tried to reject the Bar's notice seeking her disbarment, but her first filing lacked required sworn statements, so the Bar argued she should be disbarred automatically without a hearing. A day later she filed a corrected rejection with sworn responses. A Special Master found she was only fully excused from default on two of the nine matters, and on the other seven he would only let her contest one allegation (dishonesty) while treating the rest as admitted. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, finding her mistake was ordinary negligence, not willful or grossly negligent, and that Georgia's default-opening rule does not allow splitting a single case into pieces. It rejected the Special Master's report and sent all seven remaining matters back to the State Bar to pursue through a formal complaint.

The court held that Georgia's default-opening statute cannot be applied piecemeal to some allegations in a disciplinary case but not others, and because McKinney's late, incomplete rejection resulted from ordinary negligence rather than willful or gross negligence, default should be opened as to all seven remaining client matters, not just the dishonesty allegation.

The ruling clarifies that attorneys facing Bar discipline get a fuller chance to contest all allegations against them if their default was not deliberate or grossly careless, shaping how the State Bar and Special Masters handle similar procedural missteps by lawyers statewide.

Case remanded to State Bar to file formal complaint

1. The court applied Georgia's rule for opening a default judgment (O.C.G.A. § 9-11-55(b)), which lets a court reopen a case if the missed deadline was not due to willful or gross negligence and the other side won't be harmed, and held this rule applies to attorney discipline defaults just as it does in ordinary civil cases.
2. The court found McKinney's failure to include sworn responses in her first rejection was simple negligence, not willful or gross negligence, because she corrected the mistake the very next business day by filing an amended rejection with sworn statements.
3. The court concluded the State Bar failed to show it would be harmed by reopening the case, noting the Bar and a Special Master already have several other pending matters involving McKinney, so handling these seven matters through a formal complaint added little burden.
4. The court reasoned that the requirement to show a 'meritorious defense' should still apply, but found McKinney met it because she disputed whether disbarment was the right punishment for the violations she admitted, even though she did not contest every rule violation.
5. The court determined that a disciplinary 'case' cannot be split so that default is opened for only part of the allegations against a lawyer while the rest remain admitted by default, since the default statute treats a case as a whole rather than allegation-by-allegation.
6. Because reopening default fully served the court's stated preference for deciding cases on their merits, the court rejected the Special Master's partial opening of default and sent all seven matters back to the State Bar to pursue formally.

• attorney discipline
• State Bar of Georgia
• default judgment
• child custody representation
• law license