In the Matter of Mylee McKinney

Four clients hired Mylee McKinney for family law matters, including child custody, divorce, and domesticating a Nevada custody order. In each case McKinney stopped communicating, missed deadlines and hearings, kept fees without doing the promised work, and in one instance created a fake court filing with a false file stamp to make a client believe she had filed paperwork she never actually filed. When the State Bar brought formal disciplinary complaints, McKinney did not respond, so a special master found her in default and treated the allegations as admitted. The special master recommended disbarment, and the Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the record and agreed. The court ordered McKinney's name removed from the rolls of attorneys allowed to practice law in Georgia.

The court held that McKinney's admitted violations, including dishonesty and fabricating a court filing, abandonment of clients, and failure to communicate or refund fees, warranted disbarment, consistent with the presumptive penalties under the ABA sanction standards and similar Georgia disciplinary cases.

Georgians who hired McKinney lost money, missed court deadlines, and in one case a client was arrested because of her false filing. The ruling reinforces that Georgia lawyers who abandon clients, mishandle fees, or fabricate documents risk losing their license entirely.

Disbarred

1. Because McKinney defaulted by failing to answer the State Bar's formal complaints, the facts alleged in those complaints, including missed deadlines, unreturned fees, and a fabricated filing, were deemed admitted under State Bar Rule 4-212.
2. The special master applied the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, a framework courts use to match discipline to the duty violated, the lawyer's mental state, and the harm caused, and found disbarment was the presumptive penalty for McKinney's intentional dishonesty (Rule 8.4(a)(4)) and her willful abandonment of clients (Rules 1.2 and 1.3).
3. The special master found several aggravating factors, including a dishonest and selfish motive, a repeated pattern of misconduct across four clients, admission of multiple offenses, refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, a vulnerable client, and failure to make restitution, with McKinney's lack of prior discipline as the only mitigating factor.
4. The Supreme Court of Georgia noted that a violation of Rule 8.4(a)(4), which bars conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, is by itself among the most serious violations an attorney can commit and can justify disbarment, and that McKinney's fabrication of a false filing and her pattern of abandoning clients each independently supported disbarment.
5. Reviewing the full record and comparing it to similar Georgia disciplinary cases involving client abandonment and dishonesty, the court agreed with the special master that disbarment was the appropriate and consistent sanction.

• attorney disbarment
• State Bar of Georgia
• client abandonment
• fabricated court filing
• default discipline