The VLW Blog

Alleged mishandling of a personal injury claim has brought a three-year suspension for Richmond-area lawyer Sara Davis Harman, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The paper reports Harman also is being sued for malpractice over her handling of the injury claim. According to the paper, the suspension followed an agreement earlier this month by Harman to surrender [...]

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Former Virginia Beach attorney Philip Leibman has been charged with practicing law the week after his license was revoked by the Virginia State Bar. The criminal charge was returned among indictments from a Virginia Beach grand jury on Monday. A news release from the commonwealth’s attorney’s office said Liebman represented a client in general district [...]

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Former Grundy lawyer David Cecil pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges of mail fraud, money laundering and tax evasion in connection with his handling of the estate of a Buchanan County physician. The government says Cecil stole more than $175,000 from trust accounts he was hired to administer for the estates of Robert and Nancy [...]

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Former Virginia Beach attorney Stephen Gunther has been sentenced to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay $231,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to fraud in connection with a series of real estate closings, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Gunther, 40, a resident of Hertford, N.C., allegedly used straw purchasers [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia will not second guess a decision to discipline a Falls Church lawyer for suing a doctor who never treated the lawyer’s client. The court decision comes in the case of Michael P. Weatherbee, who sued Winchester obstetrician Ward Vaughan in a medical malpractice action even though Dr. Vaughan had no [...]

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Wise lawyer R. Stuart Collins reportedly is still waiting to find out why his law license was summarily suspended by the Virginia State Bar last week. Collins’ attorney, former Bar counsel Mike Rigsby, said he called lawyer discipline officials at the VSB, but received no explanation.  "At this point, I know nothing," Rigsby said yesterday. [...]

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Former attorney Kristina M. Cardwell wept as she was sentenced Monday to 5½ years in prison for participating in a $1.3 million real estate fraud at the Norfolk law office of Troy Titus. Cardwell, 38, told U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson her 2½-year-old daughter was all she cared about as she apologized for her crimes, [...]

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A Danville lawyer who was a no show for oral arguments in two appeals before the Court of Appeals of Virginia has been publicly held in contempt and banned from practicing before that court for two years. The court today issued a published order imposing sanctions on attorney Jon I. Davey. According to the order, [...]

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The Virginia State Bar has imposed a one-year suspension on the law license of Anne Marston Lynch, the Suffolk lawyer who was publicly castigated by the Virginia Court of Appeals for repeated lapses in the handling of a criminal appeal. The Court of Appeals, in a Feb. 3 published order, disbarred Lynch indefinitely from practice [...]

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Former Christiansburg lawyer Gerard Marks has agreed to serve 11 months in jail for forging official documents to make clients think he had done legal work for them. The agreement was worked out just before a scheduled sentencing hearing, according to The Roanoke Times.  An investigation showed Marks had forged the signatures of Circuit Judges [...]

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