Andrea Jo Anne David-Vega was, by most accounts, a hard-working lawyer. In addition to her own private practice, David-Vega served as a special assistant attorney general, representing the state of Georgia’s Department of Family and Child Services in Gwinnett County with a caseload of 200 cases. She later acquired an additional 150 cases from a neighboring county while still managing her own law practice.
However, that overwhelming schedule became overwhelming for David-Vega. After she missed filing suit before the expiration of a statute of limitations in a client’s personal injury matter, David-Vega created a fake email, purportedly from her client, terminating her representation before the statute of limitations deadline.
For her violation of a number of state bar rules, Georgia’s State Disciplinary Review Board and a special master recommended a suspension of at least two years. In In re David-Vega, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed that serious discipline was warranted, but the state’s high court went a step further.
Instead of suspending David-Vega for two years, the Georgia Supreme Court disbarred her.
Hurt Through No Fault of His Own
Fadi Milan was in an automobile accident in which he alleged he sustained major brain injuries. In August 2016, he retained his longtime attorney, Andrea Jo Anne David-Vega, to represent him in the matter.
After an initial meeting on the case between lawyer and client, things went downhill.
Milan said after not having heard from David-Vega, Milan discussed his case with David-Vega in May 2018 and made an appointment to meet with her. However, when Milan arrived at David-Vega’s offices, she was nowhere to be seen. She had arranged for her husband, who is not a lawyer, to give Milan some paperwork.
Following this meeting, Milan emailed David-Vega to schedule a time to discuss his case. David-Vega did not respond to Milan, cut off communication with the insurer, and failed to file the suit by August 2018, at which point the limitation period had run. Between January 2019 and February 2020, Milan called David-Vega’s office over 65 times to ask about the status of his case and continued contacting her via email and text message through April 2020.
Funky Fonts with Perfect Grammar
After Milan filed a bar complaint about David-Vega’s alleged behavior vis-à-vis his personal injury claim, David-Vega provided a sworn response and produced a March 9, 2018, email purportedly from Milan. In the email, Milan stated that he no longer needed David-Vega’s services, and he requested the return of his file.
At the state bar’s request, David-Vega provided several email exchanges between Milan and David-Vega. The alleged March 9 email terminating the lawyer’s services had a different font than others.
Even more interestingly, in the March 9 email—unlike any of the other messages from Milan—Milan used perfect diction, capitalization, and punctuation. Milan denied sending the email, and the state bar determined that David-Vega likely falsified the email.
The Nuclear Option
In determining sanctions for David-Vega, the special master noted aggravating and mitigating factors.
Among the aggravating factors were Milan’s severe injuries and harassment from creditors on his medical bills, and his lost cause due to David-Vega’s actions—or inactions. In addition, the special master noted David-Vega’s dishonesty and her dragging out the malpractice settlement negotiations for two years. The mitigating factors included David-Vega’s excessive workload, her ill parents, and diagnoses of ADHD and anxiety.
Although the state bar and the special master recommended a suspension of at least two years, the Georgia Supreme Court went for the nuclear option and disbarred David-Vega.
“We also agree with the Special Master that David-Vega’s false statements as to when she was terminated by Milan and her fabrication of evidence during the underlying disciplinary proceeding and in the malpractice case against her implicate some of the most serious violations under the Rules, and that severe discipline is warranted. After consideration of the record in this matter, we conclude that disbarment is the appropriate sanction for David-Vega’s violations of the GRPC. We conclude that this sanction is consistent with prior disciplinary matters in which we have disbarred attorneys who have made false statements to a tribunal and in connection with disciplinary proceedings and have fabricated evidence,” a unanimous Georgia Supreme Court wrote in a per curiam opinion.
Why David-Vega Matters
Disbarred over e-discovery violations? Yes. David-Vega is important because the case illustrates the very serious consequences of serious discovery abuse.
As the Georgia Supreme Court noted, false statements and fabrication of evidence “implicate some of the most serious violations under the Rules.” Granted, most lawyers are not manufacturing evidence. Nevertheless, David-Vega shows courts take bad behavior in discovery seriously. It also shows a bigtime workload, ill parents, ADHD, and anxiety are probably not going to get you off the hook when there’s a fact pattern like this one.
The case is especially noteworthy because the Georgia Supreme Court handed down a far more severe sanction than the state bar had recommended. Instead of going with the recommended suspension of at least two years, the Georgia Supreme Court noted it had disbarred lawyers for similar conduct, including In re Ettings (2022), In re Jefferson (2019), and In re Jones-Lewis (2014).
We should note that this wasn’t a very sophisticated e-discovery crime. No need for forensic examinations of metadata when you have fonts that don’t match and an emailer with a suddenly superior command of the English language.
It’s a classic example of the cover-up being worse than the crime. Had David-Vega simply admitted she missed the statute of limitations deadline, it might have cost her only preferred malpractice insurance rates—instead of costing her a career.
David Horrigan is Relativity’s discovery counsel and legal education director. An attorney, award-winning journalist, law school guest lecturer, and former e-discovery industry analyst, David has served as counsel at the Entertainment Software Association, reporter and assistant editor at The National Law Journal, and analyst and counsel at 451 Research. The author and co-author of law review articles as well as the annual Data Discovery Legal Year in Review, David is a frequent contributor to Legaltech News, and he was First Runner-Up for Best Legal Analysis in the LexBlog Excellence Awards. His articles have appeared also in The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, The New York Law Journal, Texas Lawyer, The Washington Examiner, and others, and he has been cited by media, includingAmerican Public Media’s Marketplace, TechRepublic, and The Wall Street Journal. David serves on the Global Advisory Board of ACEDS, the Planning Committee of the University of Florida E-Discovery Conference, and the Resource Board of the National Association of Women Judges. David is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, and he is an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional/US.
