Ending what may be the most hotly contested bar discipline proceeding in the state’s history, the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday disbarred two Atlanta personal injury lawyers for using so-called “runners” in the 1990s to drum up business. Partners Steven F. Freedman and Thomas C. Sinowski long ago admitted they had violated rules and agreed to be punished in some manner. But for nearly a decade, they had fought the bar’s efforts to remove them from the rolls of licensed attorneys, arguing that lawyers in similar circumstances had been given mere reprimands.
They had received some help from the court’s former chief justice, Norman S. Fletcher, who had testified on their behalf and filed an amicus brief with the high court saying disbarment might be difficult to justify given how other cases had been handled. And the court entertained oral arguments in the case—unusual, if not unprecedented, for a discipline matter.
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