The VLW Blog

A Roanoke lawyer left divorce clients in the lurch when he quietly closed his law office and disappeared, Virginia State Bar documents reveal. Now, the lawyer has agreed to give up his license to practice. Randall B. Campbell acknowledged Monday in a VSB affidavit he abandoned his law practice and failed to protect his client’s [...]

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The Virginia State Bar has reprimanded a Martinsville lawyer for filing a lawsuit the judge called “dead on arrival.” William Swezey sued three people on behalf of a veterinarian who was angered by allegations against him at a hearing on his professional license. The lawsuit claimed the witnesses at the hearing conspired to lie and [...]

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A Springfield lawyer who took up with a gambling man 15 years ago has lost her law license for a year based on a federal felony conviction. Sharon R. Connelly told a federal judge in 2007 she had no idea her friend, Raj Kumar Bansal, was running a gambling operation until he pleaded guilty to [...]

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Seven years after agreeing to revocation of his law license amid allegations of misbehavior in and out of court, a former Richmond lawyer is asking to practice law again. Kenneth Dennis Sisk gave up his license in 2005 after being accused of making a court appearance in a criminal matter while his license was suspended. [...]

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A Winchester lawyer facing six complaints from the Virginia State Bar has agreed to a six-month suspension for a series of legal ethics violations, including disobeying a judge’s ruling and filing a pleading while he was under a prior suspension order. As part of an Aug. 17 agreement with the VSB, the bar dropped two [...]

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A former Falls Church lawyer who admitted stealing from the assets of an elderly Arlington couple received a suspended four-year prison sentence last month. Erin Weber Anderson – now known as Erin Marie Weber – was ordered to repay more than $275,000 she was accused of taking while she served as guardian and conservator for [...]

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Another former official in the Bush administration Justice Department has accepted a public reprimand from the Virginia State Bar for attempting to cover up political favoritism in the hiring and firing of staff attorneys. On Feb. 11, a VSB Fourth District-Section II Subcommittee admonished John A. Nowacki for violating a professional rule governing conduct involving [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia has reversed a public admonition for a prosecutor who talked to a defendant without his lawyer. The defendant was involved in two separate cases and the high court said the disciplinary charge did not adequately inform the lawyer which matter was at issue. The Virginia State Bar charged Caroline County [...]

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A Newport News attorney has been suspended for three months after allegedly failing to keep in touch with his clients in a family financial dispute. The complaint against Richard S. Gordon arose from a 2008 case in Hampton in which two brothers hired Gordon to represent them against a third brother in a dispute over [...]

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A lawyer who allowed grieving family members to forge a dying woman’s signature on estate planning documents has had his law license suspended for two and a half years by the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board. The decision comes seven months after John M. Coppola was disbarred in Maryland for the same offenses. Coppola, a [...]

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