Virginia Lawyer Register NOTICES TO LAWYERS The Virginia State Bar Clients’ Protection Fund Board authorized payments totaling $24,905.00 in reimbursement to former clients of six Virginia attorneys at its most recent meeting on June 9, 2020. In the largest award of the meetings, one petitioner, a client of George Ernest Marzloff 1 of Culpeper, was awarded $10,500 as reimbursement for fees that the attorney collected for an unlawful detainer/damages case against a former day care that had been a tenant. The investigator found insufficient work on the attorney’s part. A second former client of Marzloff was granted $2,000 for failure to do sufficient work to earn a fee for a bankruptcy case. Marzloff ’s license was revoked 2 in August 2019 after being suspended for three years effective December 7, 2018, for mis-conduct related to the petitioner’s and additional cases. Two petitioners recovered $4,000 and $2,000, respectively, for fees paid to Jahangir Ghobadi 2 of Sterling regarding their individual cases. In the former, Ghobadi failed to provide sufficient services in a request to file a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a man convicted of first-degree murder and conspir-acy. The investigator found that he has performed some of the services he was retained for but failed to complete the work. The requestor was granted half the requested recompense. In the latter investigation against Ghobadi, he was found to have not followed the client’s explicit prohibition against re-questing financial support in an uncontested divorce proceed-ing. He also requested an ore tenus hearing despite knowing the parties involved did not satisfy the one-year separation requirement. Ghobadi had his license revoked in June 2019 for this and one additional misconduct case. The board approved a $2,000 payment to a petitioner to reimburse for a real estate case in which Marc Ericson Darnell 4 of Newport News did not resolve the clients’ case due to his suspension. The investigator found that Darnell had completed significant work against the case and granted half the requested $4,000 should be awarded. Darnell’s license was suspended for 1 2 three years beginning September 18, 2019. A petitioner received $3,000 as reimbursement for funds that the attorney Kathryn Suzanne Pennington of Virginia Beach received for a reformation of a trust to provide for her special needs brother. The attorney was found to engage in dishonest conduct including failure to file any of the docu-ments she claimed to have submitted on the client’s behalf. Pennington’s license was revoked 5 by consent on May 11, 2020, for numerous infractions after a suspension 6 was ordered on March 13, 2020. A former client of Vincent Mark Amberly 7 of Leesburg was awarded $800 by the board for failing to act on a trademark application in a timely manner, or forwarding the USPTO Office Action notice to the client, thereby losing the application to the trademark office. A six-month suspension was issued on January 5, 2020, for Amberly. The board approved the payment of $605 to a petitioner against Stephen John Weisbrod of Hampton for failing to file a request for a no-fault divorce for 15 months and then refusing to refund the fee despite a clear obligation to do so. Weisbrod transferred to permanent disabled/retired status effective November 27, 2019. A chart of the amounts paid as a result of the two meetings follows. The board delays the release of the final chart, as the awards given to new petitioners are subject to a 30-day appeal period. The Clients’ Protection Fund was created by the Supreme Court of Virginia to reimburse persons who suffer a quantifi-able financial loss because of dishonest conduct by a Virginia lawyer whose law license has been suspended or revoked for disciplinary reasons, or who has died and did not properly maintain client funds. The fund is not taxpayer funded but is supported by Virginia lawyers who pay an annual fee of up to $25. The Supreme Court of Virginia has set the current annual fee at $10 per Virginia lawyer with an active license status. Payments from the Clients’ Protection Fund are discretionary and are not a matter of right. If you have any questions, you may contact Vivian R. Byrd, administrator to Clients’ Protection Fund by email at (804) 775-0572. 5 6 vsb.org/docs/Marzloff-081519.pdf vsb.org/docs/Marzloff-110518.pdf 3 4 vsb.org/docs/Ghobadi-071919.pdf vsb.org/docs/Darnell-091919.pdf vsb.org/docs/Pennington-051120.pdf vsb.org/docs/Pennington-031720.pdf 7 vsb.org/docs/Amberly-022120.pdf Docket Number 19-555-003215 20-555-003222 20-555-003239 20-555-003245 20-555-003246 20-555-003254 20-555-003257 20-555-003270 Lawyer’s Name George Ernest Marzloff Jahangir Ghobadi George Ernest Marzloff Marc Ericson Darnell Jahangir Ghobadi Kathryn Suzanne Pennington Vincent Mark Amberly Stephen John Weisbrod City of Record Culpeper, VA Sterling, VA Culpeper, VA Newport News, VA Sterling, VA Virginia Beach, VA Leesburg, VA Hampton, VA Amount Paid $10,500.00 $2,000.00 $2,000.00 $2,000.00 $4,000.00 $3,000.00 $800.00 $605.00 Type of Case Unearned fees/Landlord/Tenant Unearned fees/Immigration Unearned fees/Bankruptcy Unearned fees/Real Estate Unearned fees/Immigration Unearned fees/Trusts Unearned fees/Patents, Trademark & Copyrights Unearned fees/Family Law 56 VIRGINIA LAWYER | AUGUST 2020 | VOL. 69 www.vsb.org