## Facts

- George Ernest Skouteris, Jr., a Tennessee attorney admitted in 1988, had prior discipline for similar conduct, including wrongfully withholding clients’ settlement funds (1997 informal admonition; 2000 public censure with remedial requirements and trust-account monitoring) and other misconduct (2003 informal admonition).
- The Board of Professional Responsibility filed three petitions for discipline (beginning in 2010) arising from six client complaints involving separate personal-injury representations between 2007 and 2011.
- Across the matters, the misconduct followed a recurring pattern: Skouteris resolved claims and, without informing clients, deposited settlement checks; used client settlement funds for himself; and repeatedly allowed his trust-account balance to fall below the amounts owed to clients and third parties, including overdrafts.
- He failed to promptly notify clients of settlements and receipts of funds, failed to promptly deliver and disburse settlement proceeds, and failed to provide written, itemized statements showing how settlement funds were distributed.
- He did not have written contingency-fee agreements with the clients.
- He failed to keep at least one client’s funds separate from his own money and failed to cooperate with a former client’s new attorney in transferring the file or otherwise assisting successor counsel.
- He did not timely respond to the Board’s investigative requests for information.
- When confronted with complaints, Skouteris offered explanations but did not accept responsibility for the misconduct.
- Applying the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, the hearing panel found multiple rule violations and identified aggravating factors including dishonest/selfish motive, a pattern of misconduct, multiple offenses with prior discipline for withholding client money, refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing, client dependence and vulnerability, substantial experience, and indifference to restitution.
- The hearing panel ordered disbarment. Skouteris sought review in the trial court, which affirmed. Skouteris then appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, arguing the sanction should instead be a five-year suspension with three years served on probation.

## Issues

1. Whether the hearing panel’s findings and sanction were supported by substantial and material evidence and were not arbitrary or capricious under Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 9.
2. Whether disbarment was the proper sanction, or whether a fixed-term suspension with probation was more appropriate in light of the misconduct and aggravating factors.

## Decision

- The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment, which upheld the hearing panel’s order of disbarment.
- The Court held that the hearing panel’s factual findings and conclusions of rule violations were supported by substantial and material evidence and were not arbitrary or capricious.
- The Court agreed that the ABA Standards, together with the seriousness and repeated nature of the misuse of client funds and other violations, justified disbarment rather than a term suspension with probation.

## Legal Principles

- A hearing panel’s decision in an attorney disciplinary case will be upheld if it is supported by substantial and material evidence and is not arbitrary or capricious; appellate review does not reweigh evidence or second-guess credibility determinations made by the panel.
- The appropriateness of the sanction is reviewed in light of Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 9 and the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, including the duty violated, the lawyer’s mental state, the actual or potential injury, and aggravating or mitigating factors.
- Knowing misappropriation or misuse of client funds, chronic trust-account shortages or overdrafts, and repeated failures to promptly notify and pay clients and third parties are among the most serious forms of professional misconduct and commonly warrant disbarment, especially when part of a continuing pattern.
- Aggravating factors supporting a more severe sanction include dishonest or selfish motive, a pattern of misconduct, multiple offenses, prior discipline for similar conduct, refusal to acknowledge wrongful conduct, client vulnerability, substantial practice experience, and indifference to restitution.
- Separate duties—competence, diligence, communication, safekeeping property, cooperation with successor counsel, and cooperation with disciplinary authorities—may each support discipline, and their repetition across multiple clients supports a finding that a lesser sanction is insufficient to protect the public and the legal profession.

## Conclusion

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Skouteris’s disbarment because substantial and material evidence showed that, across six personal-injury matters, he repeatedly mishandled settlement proceeds by depositing checks without informing clients, using client funds, and running trust-account balances below amounts owed (including overdrafts), while also failing to document fees and disbursements, communicate with clients, cooperate with successor counsel, and respond to the Board; given his prior similar discipline and multiple aggravating factors, the Court held disbarment was the proper sanction under Rule 9 and the ABA Standards.


Skouteris v. Board of Professional Responsibility, 2014 WL 686690 (2014)