Supreme Court suspends license of Coral Gables attorney accused of swindling clients

The Florida Supreme Court has suspended the law license of Coral Gables attorney Jay Lewis Farrow after the state Bar sought the emergency action in June while accusing him of “causing great public harm” to multiple clients who claim he swindled them.

The court’s order, issued on Monday, requires Farrow to “cease all practice of law in Florida” within 30 days and “withdraw from the representation of all clients.”

He must also provide the Florida Bar with information on “the receipt and location of any fees or other sums received in connection with the practice or law” while the Bar’s lawyers pursue a contempt of court case against him, according to the order.

Farrow’s suspension remains in effect “until further order of this court,” which has the authority to mete out punishment in cases brought by The Florida Bar against lawyers found to be violating its rules on ethics and other regulations.

The Florida Bar’s petition for emergency suspension accused Farrow of lying to the Supreme Court about his “agreement” with the Bar to dismiss a contempt action brought against him last year while its lawyers pursued more than a dozen misconduct grievances from clients.

The petition said Farrow “has engaged in blatantly abusive litigation tactics; failed to comply with court orders; charged and received exorbitant fees from clients for which he produced no or minimal work product; and submitted fraudulent filings to the [Supreme] Court in the pending contempt action.”

The Bar declined to comment on the Supreme Court’s suspension, referring the Herald to filings in its case against Farrow. Farrow, 49, a University of Miami School of Law graduate who was admitted to The Florida Bar in 2003, formerly had his office in Coral Gables but now appears to be working in Davie. He could not be reached for comment.

Farrow was the subject of a Miami Herald story based on interviews with more than a dozen former clients who said Farrow had deserted them without completing the legal work he promised them.

The story featured a Florida couple who took out a second mortgage on their home in 2023 to pay him $80,000 in legal fees for a lawsuit against the landlord of their go-kart racing track. St. Petersburg couple Bobbie and Terry Downs said Farrow didn’t file the suit as promised, leading to their complaint against him with the Florida Bar last summer.

A few months after the Herald story was published in November, Farrow, his wife and infant child filed a 267-page lawsuit against dozens of defendants — including other law firms, insurance companies and the newspaper’s parent company, McClatchy Media, and one of its journalists — accusing them of aiding and abetting a cyber-conspiracy against them. Farrow’s case, filed in February, is pending in federal court in Miami.

’Serious harm to clients’: Florida Bar

A critical turning point in the Florida Bar’s case against Farrow occurred in late November when the Bar’s lawyers filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to find him in contempt, based on his “failure to respond to 13 separate grievances.” The Bar asked the Supreme Court to suspend Farrow until he responded to each of the grievances, but the court did not do so.

On March 18, 2025, Farrow filed documents that claimed he and the Bar agreed to drop the contempt case. Those filings were among the key elements in the Bar’s emergency petition filed in June that sought his immediate suspension.

“These pleadings falsely proclaimed an agreement between respondent [Farrow] and the bar to voluntarily dismiss the contempt proceedings that were then pending in this [Supreme] Court,” the Bar’s emergency petition stated.

“The alleged stipulation was clearly suspect, as it contained errors and misspellings, including of the then assigned Bar counsel’s name,” the petition stated. “The pleadings were designed to mislead this Court into believing that the Bar agreed to a dismissal of the contempt action; when, in fact, nothing of the kind had ever occurred.”

The emergency petition, which included affidavits by Bar Counsel Randall L. Berman and investigator John Berrena, asserted that Farrow is “undeterred by orders of the court.”

“He has caused, or is likely to cause, immediate and serious harm to clients, the legal system, or the public, and immediate action must be taken to protect [his] clients and the public,” the petition stated, requesting Farrow’s immediate suspension as a lawyer in Florida.