The Florida Supreme Court in the courtroom.

 

The Florida Supreme Court has sided with court-appointed referee Hillsborough Circuit Judge Martha J. Cook, who recommended that St. Petersburg foreclosure defense attorney Kelley Andrea Bosecker lose her license to practice law after she was found guilty of violating the terms of a previous disciplinary order.

Cook found Bosecker guilty of violating four bar rules, which govern suspension, notice to clients, notice of employment required and conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud or misrepresentation. The court ultimately sided with the Florida Bar, which claimed that Bosecker “failed to timely notify opposing counsel, the courts and her clients that she was suspended, and she was practicing law while suspended.”

Bosecker, who's been a lawyer for 29 years and has never had a client complaint, said she felt the decision was “harsh.”

“I admitted I made mistakes in administering the suspension, and I apologized and nobody was hurt,” Bosecker said. “Why would they come after me so hard on silly little issues?”

Read the Florida Supreme Court's decision:

Bosecker was suspended for 45 days on May 5, 2016, and ordered to pay a total of $8,000 in restitution for pursuing “frivolous” claims on behalf of her client in a property dispute case. Bosecker said she disagreed with the court's description of her actions, claiming she was attempting to look out for her clients, as “banks violate the law constantly and nothing seems to happen to them.”

“Somebody needs to do something and I was trying, but I can't anymore,” Bosecker said.

The suspension stemmed from complaints made by three judges and two banks, and related to quiet title actions Bosecker had filed against lenders.

“I don't think the complaints were legitimate,” Bosecker said. “But I fully cooperated with the bar, which is supposed to make a huge difference.”

Legal chess. Photo: royalty free.

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Bosecker filed a conditional guilty plea and reached a consent judgment with the Florida Bar, which sparked the 45-day suspension and a two-year probation period. According to the consent judgment, Bosecker's “meritless theory” was that “a cloud was created on her clients' title to their property because the defendant lenders failed to acknowledge loan documents.”

“I had a conceptual problem because I didn't think I'd done anything wrong,” Bosecker said. “But when [my attorney] told me I needed another $25,000 to go to trial, I told them I couldn't afford it.”

The executive director of the Florida Bar in Tallahassee, Joshua E. Doyle, Tampa attorneys Chardean Mavis Hill and Katrina S. Brown, and Sunrise attorney Adria E. Quintela served as counsel to the Florida Bar, which would not comment on the case.

The Florida Bar. Courtesy photo.

Read the Florida Bar's petition for contempt against Bosecker

Before Bosecker's 2016 suspension took effect, she claimed she called her clients to let them know.

“A lot of them didn't want to retain new attorneys because it was a short period and it costs money for them to do that. It was a very difficult thing to administer given the fact that it was such a short time period,” Bosecker said. ”I made some mistakes. … I didn't timely send out all my suspension notices and I did do some emails and things asking for extensions to opposing counsel. The email said in the first sentence, 'I am currently suspended from the practice of law.' I never held myself out to be an attorney during the suspension period.”

Bosecker was also admonished after admitting to minor misconduct in May 2014, when the Florida Bar claimed that she had “failed to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client in a landlord/breach of contract matter.”

Bosecker was admitted to the bar in 1984.

 

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