A Florida lawyer had a habit of practicing while suspended or, essentially, disbarred
The state Supreme Court has permanently disbarred an Orlando attorney because he kept acting as a lawyer when he was supposed to be sitting in attorney timeout.
James Woods practiced through suspensions. When he practiced during a period of disciplinary revocation, “tantamount to disbarment” as the state Supreme Court says, the Florida Bar filed a contempt of court petition. The state Supreme Court permanently disbarred Woods on March 7.
James Woods’ discipline history
The state Supreme Court suspended Woods, who was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1996, on March 30, 2006, for “knowingly practicing law while administratively suspended, being arrested on possession of cocaine charges, neglecting client matters and failing to maintain adequate communication with clients.”
But during that 91-day suspension, Woods “accepted new clients and continued to practice law.” So in April 2007, a referee accepted his guilty plea and recommended a three-year suspension. The state Supreme Court agreed, and he was suspended for three years.
Both the above quotes come from Woods’ 2015 petition for disciplinary revocation. Attorneys facing numerous disciplinary actions or who just don’t want to continue with the disciplinary process sometimes make this application.
The upside of disciplinary revocation: the professional discipline cases go away, although any civil or criminal cases arising from the actions involved remain. The downside for the attorney: the legal ability to practice law goes away, too, usually with ability to apply for readmission to the Bar after five years. That’s why the state Supreme Court filings approving a disciplinary revocation petition say it’s “tantamount to disbarment.”
And the discipline cases pending against Woods when he filed that petition in 2015? He allegedly “worked for several attorneys as an independent contractor during his suspension” and didn’t file quarterly reports with the Bar.
The state Supreme Court granted the revocation on Nov. 12, 2015, thus taking him out of the lawyer business until Nov. 12, 2020.
Spatz and one last thing
Sometime during 2017, the Florida Bar contempt petition says, Bobbie Griffith needed an attorney, and a friend told her Woods was his attorney. The petition says she paid Woods “significant fees to handle a business license matter and a separate dispute involving Spatz, a long-time business located in Winter Park...”
When attorney Robert Richmond reached out to Griffith about selling Spatz, she told him Woods was her lawyer. Woods didn’t have a business card for Richmond at their meeting, but an email address for Justin Infurna’s law firm. The Bar complaint said, concerning the sale of Spatz, Woods negotiated with Richmond for years.
Though Woods was working for Infurna as a paralegal, “Neither Ms. Griffith nor Mr. Richmond met Mr. Infurna, and both believed that respondent was Ms. Griffith’s attorney,” the Bar petition said.
(Infurna was disbarred in October after mistreating so many clients, the referee in his cases said he “engaged in a serious and shocking pattern of misconduct that gravely damaged numerous individuals as well as the judicial system as a whole.”)
Last summer, Griffith couldn’t get a hold of Woods, which sent her son to the Bar website. That’s when they found out Woods shouldn’t have been practicing law.
The petition said Woods didn’t answer Griffith’s text and blocked Richmond’s phone number.
