Who they are
Leigh Burgess is an Assistant General Counsel in the State Bar of Georgia Office of the General Counsel. Her April 21 email is the central document on this site. The State Bar lists her as Assistant General Counsel in its staff directory.
Why they are on this page
Facts only. What they did or did not do, each with a document behind it.
- On April 21, 2026 she made the written admission that the submissions were misclassified and left out of the grievance file before the April 10 dismissal.
- On May 5 she confirmed the point a second time, that the two submissions and the response were now together in the file.
- An unsigned May 19 email from a generic Bar mailbox reused her May 5 disclaimer; the Bar was asked to confirm the authorship and named no author. Presented as an open inference the Bar declined to resolve, not as established authorship.
Timeline
Every email they sent, were sent, or were copied on, in order, each linked to the item. Where a read receipt was captured, the time is shown. Chronology, not motive.
| Date | Role | What it was | Read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 21, 2026 | She sent | The admission. “As a result of this misclassification, your submissions were not added to the grievance file at that time.” | Read it |
| Apr 30, 2026 | Copied | The ADA accommodation package and the conflict-screen demand. | Read it |
| May 5, 2026 | She sent | Operational answers confirming the file was now complete. “Please note that OGC@gabar.org is not an email address associated with our office.” | Read it |
| May 11-15, 2026 | Copied | The cure-window sequence and the grievance-filing notices. | Read it |
| May 29, 2026 | Sent to her | The grievance filed against her (via the General Counsel). | Read it |
| June 1, 2026 | Copied | Two receipt-confirmation requests, sent because no confirmation had come. | Read it |
| June 30, 2026 | She received | The dismissal of the grievance against her. | Read it |
The complaint we filed
On May 29, 2026 we filed a grievance against Ms. Burgess. Why: the admitted misfiling, the anonymous institutional response the Bar would not attribute, and the failure to make the one-sentence correction she was in a position to confirm. Read the filing.
Their clearance
On June 30, 2026 the Bar dismissed that grievance, signed by Jeffrey W. DeLoach, Chair of the State Disciplinary Board, in a single paragraph. It was one of several matters closed that same day, each in a one paragraph letter. Read the June 30 dispositions.
The dismissal came at the screening gate, the first threshold a grievance has to pass. No investigation was opened. A screening dismissal means that, taking every fact in the complaint as true, the Bar decided the conduct was not even worth examining. Guilty or not, the Bar’s position is that these actions are not worth a look.
