Background
Mylee McKinney, a Georgia attorney (State Bar No. 122143), faced two formal complaints encompassing four client disciplinary matters (SDBD Nos. 7997, 8001, 8036, and 8037), all arising from her handling of family law cases. In August 2025, McKinney acknowledged service of both formal complaints but failed to answer them, resulting in a default entered by Special Master Patrick E. Longan in October 2025. The deemed-admitted facts established a pattern of abandoning clients, failing to communicate, collecting fees without performing promised work, and, in at least one instance, fabricating a court filing.
The most serious single incident involved SDBD No. 8036, in which McKinney provided a client with what purported to be a file-stamped petition filed in Bryan County Superior Court. Investigation revealed that the file stamp belonged to an unrelated case and that McKinney had never filed anything on the client’s behalf. When confronted, McKinney initially attributed the discrepancy to an accidental misfiling, but further review—including anomalies in a screenshot of a case-management system she submitted to investigators—established that she had fabricated the document. The client was arrested for violating a custody order and had to hire replacement counsel to handle both the original matter and a resulting contempt charge.
The remaining three matters reflected similar misconduct: collecting retainers of $2,500 to $5,000, failing to appear at scheduled appointments or respond to client communications, neglecting filing and discovery deadlines, allowing a temporary order to be entered without client consent, sending abusive text messages to a client, and ultimately going silent and closing her office without notice. McKinney never filed exceptions to the Special Master’s report and recommendation.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Georgia adopted the Special Master’s report and recommendation in full, finding that McKinney violated Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.2(a) (abiding by client decisions), 1.3 (diligence), 1.4 (communication), 1.5(a) (reasonable fees), 3.2 (expediting litigation), 8.1(a) (false statements in disciplinary matters), and 8.4(a)(4) (dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation). The Court ordered McKinney’s name removed from the rolls of persons authorized to practice law in Georgia and reminded her of her duties under Bar Rule 4-219(b).
The Court agreed with the Special Master’s ABA Standards analysis, which identified disbarment as the presumptive sanction for McKinney’s intentional dishonesty (Rules 8.4(a)(4) and 8.1(a)) and her willful abandonment of all four clients (Rules 1.2 and 1.3). Six aggravating factors were found—dishonest and selfish motive, pattern of misconduct, multiple offenses, refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, a vulnerable victim, and indifference to restitution—against only one mitigating factor: the absence of prior disciplinary history. The Court noted that McKinney’s fabrication of a pleading alone, her Rule 8.4(a)(4) violations alone, and her pattern of client abandonment alone would each independently justify disbarment under Georgia precedent.
Key Takeaways
- Fabricating a file-stamped court pleading to deceive a client—and then submitting a manipulated screenshot to disciplinary investigators—constitutes among the most serious professional conduct violations under Georgia law and is independently sufficient to warrant disbarment.
- A pattern of client abandonment across multiple matters, combined with default in the disciplinary process and refusal to make restitution, will overwhelm the sole mitigating factor of a clean prior disciplinary record.
- Any pending disciplinary matters against McKinney will be placed on the Court’s inactive docket and may be revived if she ever applies for reinstatement.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that Georgia courts treat fabrication of court documents—whether to deceive a client or disciplinary investigators—as misconduct warranting the ultimate professional sanction, consistent with a line of recent Georgia Supreme Court decisions including In the Matter of David-Vega, 318 Ga. 600 (2024), and In the Matter of Eddings, 314 Ga. 409 (2022). The case underscores that a previously unblemished record provides only marginal protection when intentional dishonesty and systematic client harm are present.
For family law practitioners, the opinion is a reminder that communication failures, missed deadlines, and fee disputes—even absent fabrication—can themselves support disbarment when they recur across multiple clients and are accompanied by willful disregard of disciplinary proceedings. The breadth of the Rules violations found here, spanning diligence, communication, fees, litigation conduct, candor, and integrity, illustrates how neglect in client matters rarely implicates just one rule.