Sex with a client is just one reason a Fort Lauderdale attorney was suspended
Having sex with the client in a divorce case, then ghosting the client after the sex was done, wasn’t the only reason a Fort Lauderdale attorney was put in career timeout by the state Supreme Court.
Maurice Hinton admitted to a series of ethical violations in his guilty plea accepted by discipline case referee Judge Ori Silver and the state Supreme Court. The plea included agreeing to a two-year suspension, which should keep Hinton out of the attorney business until Feb. 12, 2027.
“Should” because one of Hinton’s excursions outside the ethical lines concerned playing lawyer when he was suspended.
Hinton became a member of the Florida Bar in 2006.
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Love and marriage, sex and divorce
Hinton was a name partner in Phillips & Hinton. According to Hinton’s guilty plea and court records, Hinton took a 2019 divorce case involving a Miami Gardens woman. Hinton began a sexual relationship with his client.
“After such relationship ended, [Hinton] neglected the dissolution matter and failed to communicate with (the woman) regarding this matter,” the guilty plea reads.
Though the woman dismissed the divorce case and got back together with her husband, sex with a client in this situation and cutting off communication are no-nos.
Probate problems
In October 2018, Hinton took a probate case, took money to handle the case, then “took little or no significant action in the matter.”
He never filed the case, though the paperwork was signed in May 2019. The client hired another attorney in February 2020, then filed a Bar complaint. Hinton sent back his fee. Hinton’s slow response in answering the Florida Bar inquiry got him suspended from March 18, 2021, to April 26, 2021, then again from Sept. 4, 2021, to Dec. 7, 2021.
Bankruptcy abandoned
When Hinton made a bankruptcy filing in October 2020, the client saw errors she wanted handled. But she never got to see Hinton. She got a new attorney in April 2021.
Hinton’s stately pace of response to this Bar inquiry got him suspended on Dec. 28, 2021.
Legally speaking out of turn
On Dec. 9, 2021, Hinton sent an email to opposing counsel not in his case, but his partner’s case. The next day, there was “a long scheduled deposition that the court had required take place.”
Hinton’s email “ stated that his law partner had a scheduling conflict and would not be able to attend the deposition, apologized for the late notice, and requested that the deposition be rescheduled.”
The judge in the case fumed to the Florida Bar: “Mr. Hinton, …who never filed a notice of appearance in this case, nonetheless frustrated the taking of that deposition and advocated for defendants regarding the scheduled deposition while a suspended member of The Florida Bar.”
Hinton’s suspension for his inaction during the probate case ended two days before the letter, but he had been also on suspension since Sept. 21, 2021, for being delinquent for paying case costs and Oct. 1, 2021, for not paying Bar membership fees.
That’s why this counted as being a lawyer while on suspension.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 7:46 AM.
