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Issue 4: The June 30 decision
On June 30, 2026, the Bar dismissed every grievance below. Each card states what the grievance put in front of the Bar and what the Bar, by dismissing, has treated as not warranting discipline. The officials are named in their public roles.
Adrienne D. Nash, Grievance Counsel — the reconsideration denied, dismissal affirmed
Reconsideration denied; dismissal affirmed June 30, 2026. Signed Adrienne D. Nash, Grievance Counsel.
April 10: dismissed, stating no rebuttal was received. April 21: the Bar acknowledged in writing that my February 3 and February 20 submissions had been received and misclassified before the file was reviewed. June 30: the Bar affirmed the April 10 dismissal, confirming it had reviewed the supplemental documentation.
Dismissed for sending nothing. Admitted they had it. Affirmed after reviewing it.
I sent two rebuttal submissions. The Bar admits it received them and lost them. The April 10 letter cannot be true if the June 30 letter is. The Bar signed both. The office responsible for lawyer discipline in Georgia has a written finding in its own file that is not true, and has left it there.
Adrienne D. Nash, Grievance Counsel — Westbury grievance dismissed
Dismissed June 30, 2026. Signed Adrienne D. Nash, Grievance Counsel. The accused lawyer was copied on his own dismissal.
James R. Westbury, Jr. is a former two-term member of the State Bar of Georgia Board of Governors. By dismissing this grievance, the Bar treated it as permissible for a lawyer to accuse an unrepresented person of the unauthorized practice of law without stating the factual basis, raise the possibility of criminal liability to gain advantage in a civil case, send that accusation to more than one recipient, decline to say whose interests the lawyer represents, and decline to retract after the factual basis was challenged.
A former Bar official took the April 10 dismissal, which the Bar admits was issued on an incomplete file, and used it outside the Bar to characterize my disability-related activity as harassment. The Bar left that dismissal uncorrected the entire time.
The Bar found none of it rose to a violation. Then it copied the accused lawyer on his own clearance.
📄 Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against a former member of its Board of Governors
Andreea N. Morrison, Deputy General Counsel — grievance dismissed
Dismissed June 30, 2026 in a single paragraph. Signed Jeffrey W. DeLoach, Chair, State Disciplinary Board.
The Bar reviewed a six-page grievance against the lawyer who signed the April 10 dismissal, and dismissed it in a single paragraph. By dismissing it, the Bar treated it as permissible to sign a disciplinary dismissal on an incomplete file, to state that no rebuttal was received when the office’s own records later showed the materials had been received, to decline to correct the dismissal after the Bar acknowledged that in writing, and to let an admitted filing failure stand as the operative official record.
I paid to rebuild a record I should never have had to rebuild. The file may be complete now. The dismissal still says no rebuttal was received.
📄 Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against Deputy General Counsel Andreea N…
William D. NeSmith III, Deputy General Counsel — grievance dismissed
Dismissed June 30, 2026 in a single paragraph. Seven-page grievance, twenty-four pages of attachments. Signed Jeffrey W. DeLoach.
By dismissing this grievance, the Bar treated it as permissible to treat a disability-access request as a possible tactic to obtain a substantive outcome, to question whether a disabled complainant needs assistance after he had already requested accommodations, to schedule a call and then withdraw it, and to narrow the communication channel after protected access activity.
During that same period an unsigned message from the Bar commented on the assistive technology I use to communicate. To this day the Bar has not said who wrote it, who approved it, or who sent it.
Every other office in this case answered me directly. Only the Bar narrowed the room each time I asked about access.
📄 Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against Deputy General Counsel William D…
John J. Shiptenko, Office of the General Counsel — grievance dismissed
Dismissed June 30, 2026 in a single paragraph. Eight-page grievance, seven pages of attachments. Signed Jeffrey W. DeLoach.
The accused lawyer is the Bar’s own ADA contact. By dismissing this grievance, the Bar treated it as permissible for the person designated to handle disability access to answer a request for an accessible filing route by re-sending the same grievance form the complainant had already identified as the barrier, to point a disabled person to a form that requires printing, handwriting, and scanning, and to serve as ADA contact for a process whose English form names no ADA Coordinator while the Spanish form tells a disabled person to contact the ADA Coordinator for help.
There was also a problem with where grievances went the Bar never resolved. The grievance was against Mr. Shiptenko. The only receipt confirmation I received before it was dismissed came from Mr. Shiptenko himself — a one-word “Received” sent to me alone, with no one else copied. Before dismissal, no conflict-free reviewer, State Disciplinary Board member, or Bar official outside Mr. Shiptenko was shown to have received, screened, or accepted the grievance against him.
The accused lawyer was visible. The independent review path was not.
The Bar’s answer to a person who cannot use the portal, cannot clear the CAPTCHA, and cannot use the phone was to send him the form. The form was the barrier he had already reported.
📄 Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against its ADA contact, John J. Shiptenko
Equal rules, or no rules.
The correspondence index
All the documents, organized by what each document proves, not by file name.
| Date | Document | What it proves | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 10, 2026 | Original dismissal | The Bar dismissed the grievance saying no rebuttal was received. | Read it: State Bar of Georgia |
| April 21, 2026 | Misclassification admission | The Bar admitted the submissions were received but not added to the file before dismissal. | Read it: The Bar admitted my submissions were received but not added to the file before… |
| April 30, 2026 | Access and process request | I asked for written process, file confirmation, ADA access, and preservation. | Read it: I demanded a written conflict screen and a conflict-free reviewer |
| May 4, 2026 | Written-communication accommodation | The Bar agreed to communicate in writing because of my disability. | Read it: The Bar approved my accommodation request |
| May 7, 2026 | ADA role explanation | The Bar described an ADA access role inside the grievance process. | Read it: I responded to the Bar’s May 7 email to its General Counsel |
| May 12, 2026 | ADA denial | The Bar said it was not a public entity and need not publish an ADA Coordinator. | Read it: May 12, 2026: NeSmith Writes the Bar Is “Not a Public Entity” |
| May 26, 2026 | Narrowed engagement | The Bar narrowed which questions it would process. | Read it: I followed up on ADA access and the status of my grievances |
| May 29, 2026 | Title II denial | The Bar said its position remained that Title II did not apply. | Read it: The Bar answered my yes-or-no question on ADA Title II |
| June 10, 2026 | Reconsideration status | The Bar said review would resume June 15. | Read it: The Bar responded on the reconsideration |
| June 30, 2026 | the reconsideration denial | The Bar affirmed the dismissal without correcting the April 10 record. | Read it: State Bar of Georgia |
| June 30, 2026 | Westbury dismissal | The Bar dismissed the Westbury grievance and copied Westbury. | Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against a former member of its Board of Governors |
| June 30, 2026 | Morrison dismissal | The Bar dismissed the grievance against Morrison. | Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against Deputy General Counsel Andreea N… |
| June 30, 2026 | NeSmith dismissal | The Bar dismissed the grievance against NeSmith. | Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against Deputy General Counsel William D… |
| June 30, 2026 | Shiptenko dismissal | The Bar dismissed the grievance against Shiptenko. | Read it: The Bar dismissed my grievance against its ADA contact, John J. Shiptenko |
Below this index, the complete record shows every message in the correspondence, as written, with redactions.
How the links work
Some State Bar correspondence is marked confidential under the rules of the Supreme Court of Georgia. That does not make the facts disappear. It does mean this site may link to a document summary, excerpt, or redacted record page instead of publishing every page of every letter in full.
Each document page shows what the document is, the date, who sent it, who received it, the key excerpt, why it matters, and whether the full document is available, redacted, or summarized. That is how this site handles the documents. Carefully. Plainly. With receipts.
Bottom line
The correspondence record shows the State Bar’s process in its own words.
The Bar said no rebuttal was received. The Bar later admitted the rebuttal was received but not added to the file before dismissal. The Bar granted disability-related written communication. The Bar later denied Title II applied. The Bar affirmed the dismissal. The April 10 record was never corrected.
That is why these documents matter. Read them yourself.
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