How the State Bar of Georgia Grievance Process Actually Works

The same office in this record decides whether every other lawyer in Georgia is fit to practice. This page explains how that process is supposed to run, using the Bar’s own published description, and then shows what happened when one disabled person went through it.

One disclaimer first. I am not a lawyer, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Taking legal advice from me would be like taking medical advice from Homer Simpson. What follows is the Bar’s published process in plain language, with links to the originals, and then my own file placed next to it.

The four stages, as the Bar describes them

The State Bar of Georgia publishes its disciplinary process on its own website. Here it is in order.

Stage one. Screening

A grievance must be submitted in writing. It goes first to the Client Assistance Program and to Grievance Counsel. Grievance Counsel may ask for the client file or other documents. The office may dismiss a grievance that does not present sufficient merit to proceed.

If the matter goes forward, the lawyer is asked to respond. The Bar gives the lawyer fourteen days. When that response comes in, the complainant is given an opportunity to reply to it. The Bar calls that reply a rebuttal.

That rebuttal step is the one that matters most in this record. It is the only point in the entire process where the person who filed gets to answer what the lawyer said.

Stage two. State Disciplinary Board investigation

If the matter proceeds, it goes to the State Disciplinary Board. The Board is made up of volunteers appointed by the Supreme Court of Georgia and by the Bar president, and it includes four nonlawyer members. It meets at least eight times a year and it may issue subpoenas.

At this stage the lawyer has thirty days to file a sworn response to a Notice of Investigation. The Board can dismiss, issue a confidential Letter of Admonition, issue a confidential State Disciplinary Board Reprimand, issue a public Notice of Discipline, or refer the matter to a special master. A lawyer may reject confidential discipline and ask for a special master hearing instead.

Records of a dismissal at this stage are destroyed after one year.

Stage three. Prosecution before a special master

The Office of the General Counsel acts as prosecutor. A special master, a judge appointed by the Supreme Court, hears the matter. These proceedings are public. There is discovery. The lawyer has thirty days to answer after the complaint is served, and may file a Petition for Voluntary Discipline to resolve the case.

Stage four. The Supreme Court of Georgia

The Court reviews the pleadings and the transcript. It may impose a public reprimand, a suspension of up to five years, disbarment, or no discipline at all.

Source: Disciplinary Process, State Bar of Georgia and File a Grievance, State Bar of Georgia.

Where the process depends entirely on one filing cabinet

Read stage one again. The whole thing turns on a document arriving and being placed in the right file.

The lawyer’s response goes in the file. The complainant’s rebuttal goes in the file. Then someone reads the file and decides whether there is enough to go forward. Nobody at stage two ever meets the complainant. Nobody at stage three does either. The file is the person.

The Bar publishes no step in which a complainant is told what is in the file, and no step in which a human being confirms that a submitted document was placed there.

What happened in my file

I filed a grievance on January 23, 2026, against a City of Brookhaven contract attorney, after the City refused to discuss the matter by email, in person, or on the phone.

The grievance passed the first round. On January 28 the Office of the General Counsel processed it, assigned it a number, and routed it to the respondent. The lawyer’s written response is dated February 2. When the matter involved a fellow lawyer, the Bar obtained an answer in under a week.

Then the Bar asked me for my rebuttal, which is exactly what stage one says it should do.

I sent two. On February 3 and again on February 20. The Bar’s own intake address returned the same line both times: “Your email has been delivered.”

On April 10, 2026, Deputy General Counsel Andreea N. Morrison dismissed the grievance. Her letter said this:

“I note that our office sent you a letter advising you that you could send a written rebuttal refuting the response, but we did not receive a rebuttal.”

Andreea N. Morrison, Deputy General Counsel, State Bar of Georgia, April 10, 2026

I sent the proof, overnight, at substantial cost. On April 21, Assistant General Counsel Leigh Burgess answered:

“As a result of this misclassification, your submissions were not added to the grievance file at that time.”

Leigh Burgess, Assistant General Counsel, State Bar of Georgia, April 21, 2026

So the process worked exactly as published, except for the one step it all rests on. The documents arrived. The Bar’s system said so. They were not put in the file. The file was then reviewed as complete, and the grievance was dismissed on the ground that the missing documents were missing.

The Bar admitted the misclassification in writing. It did not correct the dismissal.

Read how the grievance began . Read the April 10 dismissal . Read the April 21 admission

What the published process does not cover

The Bar publishes four stages, several deadlines, and a set of outcomes. Here is what it does not publish anywhere I have been able to find.

• A way to confirm that a document you sent was placed in the file.
• A procedure for complaining about the grievance process itself.
• A procedure for a person with a disability who needs the process delivered differently.
• A named ADA contact for any of the above.
• A published rule for what happens on reconsideration after a dismissal, or what the reviewer is reviewing.

I asked about each of these in writing, most of them more than once, to the General Counsel, the Deputy General Counsel, the Grievance Counsel, and the ADA Coordinator. Fifteen of those questions are collected here. None were answered. On June 30, 2026, the Bar dismissed every grievance, still without answering any of them.

If you are about to file one

I am not going to tell you what to do. I will tell you what I wish I had known, and you can decide what it is worth.

• Keep the delivery receipt. Not the sent folder. The receipt the Bar’s own system returns. Mine is the only reason this record exists.
• Use the Bar’s own words for your subject line. The grievance number they assigned, and the respondent’s name. Label it a rebuttal, in that word, because the Bar’s screening turns on how a submission is categorised.
• Send it as one complete email. The Bar’s automatic reply says responses and rebuttals should be submitted in a single, complete message rather than in multiple ones.
• Ask, in writing, for confirmation that it was placed in the file. Not that it was received. That it was filed. Those turned out to be different things.
• If you need the process delivered differently because of a disability, put that request in writing separately, and keep it separate from the merits of your grievance. The federal routes for an ADA complaint are here, and they are free.

The question this page leaves with you

I am not asking you to take a side on the underlying grievance. That is not what this site is for.

I am asking a narrower question. This is the office that decides whether every other lawyer in Georgia is honest enough to keep practicing. It found a fellow lawyer’s answer in under a week. It could not find mine in two months, then admitted it had them all along, then let the dismissal stand.

Should this be the body that decides everyone else’s fitness to practice?

Read the rest of the record

• Two Tiers . a grievance against an outside lawyer got a number and a decision, grievances against insiders got weeks of nothing.
• The Moving Target . accommodations granted, then “not a public entity subject to the ADA,” then granted again.
• Who Benefits . an error the Bar admitted in writing and never corrected.
• The Comparison . what other state bars publish that Georgia does not.
• The full timeline and the complete correspondence record.

Corrections: this page is built from the Bar’s published materials and from documents I received. If any fact here is incomplete or inaccurate, identify the page, the sentence, and the supporting document, and I will review and correct the record.

I have invited the State Bar of Georgia to identify any inaccuracy on this page. As of the date above, it has identified none.

Frequently asked questions