► Judge Michael Stone of Raeford, NC; greedy loser |
Judge Michael Stone of Raeford, NC; greedy loser
The state of
In July 2014, Gov. Pat McCrory was duped into appointing Mike as a District Court Judge in
The North Carolina State Bar found Mike guilty of the following misconduct, all of which took place before Gov. McCrory appointed him to the bench. Furthermore, Gov. McCrory appointed Mike even though he knew of the misconduct set forth below.
Over an 11-month period of time, Mike and his law partner conducted numerous residential real estate closings for Chase Mortgage Brokers. Subsequently, Mike and his partner opened four offices throughout the state to perform 100% of all closings for Chase.
The closings were primarily handled by non-lawyer assistants and on numerous occasions, neither Mike or any other attorney from his office attended the closings. In addition some of the closings such as deeds and deeds of trust were drafted by non-layer assistants and were not properly reviewed by Mike or any other attorney.
Making matters worse, Mike’s office took on more work than it knew it could properly handle, as there was often a substantial delay before all documents were recorded and the final title premium checks were mailed.
It would be safe to assume that Mike did not bill his client’s at a rate consistent with work being performed by non-attorney assistants. In fact, it appears that Mike’s willingness to improperly assign these tasks to non-attorneys was to assure that he could enrich himself at the expense of his clients.
As a consequence of his misconduct, the enablers for Attorney Misfits sitting on the State Bar punished Mike by gifting him with a complimentary reprimand.
As we speak (ca. August 2014), Mike continues to sit as a District Court Judge in
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