The VLW Blog

A Fairfax County prosecutor received a public admonition yesterday from a Virginia State Bar three-judge discipline panel for allegedly withholding evidence about prosecution witnesses.
As The Washington Post reports, the judges rejected license suspension for Fairfax County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Mark Sullivan, but admonished him for allowing two co-defendants to testify they were not offered any [...]

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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 the [...]

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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 dishonesty, [...]

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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 their [...]

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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 Leesburg [...]

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A former attorney who was disbarred after he paid his son’s school tuition directly from his trust account now has pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion in connection with misuse of his law practice finances.
Steven F. Helm of Salem faces up to 23 years in prison on the charges, although prosecutors have agreed [...]

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A Virginia State Bar discipline committee rejected First Amendment defenses and distinctions about public information to find misconduct on the part of a lawyer who blogged about his cases without client consent and without a disclaimer saying case results can be unreliable.
The eight-member district committee ordered Horace Hunter of Richmond to yank from his website [...]

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A federal appeals court finds it a “close question” whether a lawyer can be convicted of obstruction of justice for conveniently omitting his prior disciplinary record in seeking pro hac vice status in a Virginia case.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided the omission alone was not sufficient to prove [...]

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A Charlottesville judge cut a husband’s wrongful death verdict by two thirds and ordered sanctions against the plaintiff and his lawyer in the aftermath of a hotly contested trial that produced a record overall jury award.
A 32-page order from Circuit Court Judge Edward Hogshire also refers Charlottesville lawyer Matthew Murray to the Virginia State Bar [...]

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