Monday, May 17, 2021

An Orlando lawyer stole $111,000 from clients, Bar says, got suspended and ignored it

By David J. Neal


An emergency suspension after an auditor looked into two client complaints about $111,001 of stolen money didn’t stop an Orlando attorney from filing a case in probate court the next day.

The violations in the above paragraph are why the state Supreme Court has disbarred Orlando lawyer Stephen Jones, the managing member of SMJ Law Firm PLLC.

Jones had been admitted to the Florida Bar in 2015. A Miami Herald reporter left a message for Jones at the phone number on his Florida Bar profile.

The referee’s report says Jones never filed an answer to the Bar’s Nov. 3 emergency suspension petition. About 20 minutes before a Nov. 23, 2020 case management conference, Jones sent an email to the referee and Bar’s attorney that he wouldn’t be available and asking that no hearings on the case be scheduled the first, third or fourth weeks of December. He also said his responses, including a motion to quash, would be coming on Nov. 25.

That’s the last the referee or the Bar heard from Jones.

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