A Cumberland County attorney has been suspended for a year after mishandling at least five civil cases, including lying about actions he had taken and adding himself as a guardian of a client’s children without asking her.
Corey James Adamson, 42, of Mechanicsburg, also told a woman he filed an inheritance tax return for her and said she owed no money to the government, but it turned out she owed the Internal Revenue Service nearly $30,000 and got penalized more than $2,000 for not paying on time. His law firm ended up paying her penalties for her.
Adamson agreed to the suspension of his law license for one year and one day with the state’s disciplinary board in September. The Supreme Court approved the agreement Wednesday covering seven violations of the state’s rules for professional conduct.
The violations covered five cases that were mishandled between 2019 and 2020, when he was fired by his law firm. After he left the firm, he told his boss in an email that he did not plan on practicing law anymore and that he was a “borderline, if not full, compulsive/pathological liar.” Adamson also said he would self-report his violations to the disciplinary board.
But he did not self-report, according to court records, and instead joined a different law firm in July 2020.
In three cases cited by the disciplinary board, Adamson repeatedly told clients he had done work or rescheduled hearings, when he had not. In one case, he told a woman seeking help to name guardians for her two daughters that hearings were bumped or rescheduled five different times, but they were all lies. He had not filed the proper paperwork.
He originally filed paperwork for her to be the sole guardian, but state law does not allow parents to serve as sole guardians, so that’s when he added himself as a co-guardian without asking her, according to court records.
Adamson “did not discuss with Ms. Miller why he believed adding himself as co-guardian was appropriate or would result in the first amended petition being granted or whether his serving as co-guardian could present a conflict of interest,” according to court records.
The client eventually named her aunt as co-guardian. Adamson told the disciplinary board that he had never previously handled a guardianship petition.
Adamson also repeatedly lied to another client that he was progressing through work to ensure the company’s assets were properly titled. Instead, after months of lies, he admitted in February 2020 that he had not done the majority of the work.
He also failed to file a civil action for a woman against a roofing company for six months, until her son checked the magisterial district judge’s office and realized nothing had been filed.
The disciplinary board said Adamson also moved forward with an appeal on a client’s case without the client agreeing to move forward with a new retainer.
The board said Adamson’s lack of prior discipline, acceptance of responsibility and cooperation were mitigating factors in their investigation, but those were minimized by the fact he falsely told the partner of his original law firm that he would self-report, which delayed the partner’s reporting of the misconduct.
Adamson will have to petition for reinstatement after his suspension, during which he will need to demonstrate how he can adequately represent clients and how he has rehabilitated himself from his “concerning statements regarding his being a pathological liar,” according to court records.
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