TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jun 26, 2023

Montgomery County lawyer Hugh Reid Poland III was censured on June 23 by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Poland represented a client who settled a custody dispute at mediation. The settlement required the client to create a parenting and visitation arrangement for a trial period, and Poland to draft the required agreed order, parenting plan and child support worksheet. The court found that Poland failed to respond to communications from opposing counsel regarding the documents and ultimately failed to draft the documents. Poland also made misrepresentations to his client and ultimately stopped responding to the client’s requests for information. Opposing counsel ended up drafting the required documents but included inaccurate statements about Poland’s client. Poland approved the documents without notifying or obtaining approval from the client. The court found that these actions violated Rules of Professional Conduct 1.3, 1.4, 8.4(c) and 8.4(d).