An attorney got disbarred in 2020 for not answering the Florida Bar. She died in 2019
Delray Beach attorney Sabrina Spradley wasn’t the first attorney to receive a longer suspension or even be disbarred for ignoring the Florida Bar’s requests for paperwork after a suspension.
But Spradley’s Feb. 11 suspension and Dec. 2 disbarment by the state Supreme Court for contempt came well after her death, which online databases and online obituaries place at Oct. 14, 2019.
She was 41. None of the obituaries list the cause of Spradley’s death.
Spradley even appears on the Florida Bar’s most recent report of attorneys disciplined by the state Supreme Court. On the alphabetical list of attorneys, Spradley slots right below permanently disbarred Miami attorney Leonardo Roth.
“We’re not aware of this happening before,” a Florida Bar spokesperson said Tuesday. “It’s unfortunate.”
No answers and suspensions
The FIU School of Law graduate didn’t answer numerous letters from the Florida Bar concerning grievances filed in 2017. But Spradley was still alive and practicing, as evidenced by volcanic emails filled with erratic spelling and caps-lock virtual screaming she sent to opposing counsel and a judge’s assistant during that time.
For ignoring the Bar’s letters about the grievances, Spradley got suspended in 2018 until she responded to the Bar’s inquiries. She was still suspended when the discipline process from the emails ended with an 18-month suspension in April 2019, as detailed in a Miami Herald story.
As with every suspended attorney, Spradley was requested to comply with Florida Bar rules “by notifying her clients, opposing counsel and tribunals of the suspension and providing The Florida Bar, within 30 days of the suspension, a sworn affidavit listing the names and addresses of all persons and entities that were furnished a copy of her suspension order.”
Understandable non-compliance
Suspended attorneys regularly fail to do this. A few names up from Spradley on the Florida Bar discipline report, you’ll find St. Petersburg’s Ronald Nelson, suspended 91 days because he “was held in contempt of the court’s order dated March 27 for failing to notify clients, opposing counsel and tribunals of his suspension.”
When Spradley didn’t produce any such notification, the Florida Bar filed a petition for contempt and order to show cause. The state Supreme Court accepted the petition and suspended Spradley on Feb. 11 for three years.
The Florida Bar’s letters to Spradley in February and March requesting the affidavit from the February 2020 suspension continued to bounce back with “return to sender.”
So, the Bar filed another petition for contempt and order to show cause, requesting Spradley’s disbarment, which the state Supreme Court granted on Dec. 2 — almost 14 months after her death.
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 3:07 PM.
