NEW ORLEANS (Louisiana Record) — Suspended Metairie attorney Debra L. Cassibry, admitted to the bar nearly 33 years ago, has been disbarred following a May 1 Louisiana Supreme Court attorney disciplinary proceeding over DWI allegations and disciplines stretching back to 2009.
Cassiby's disbarment was handed down with conditional leave for her to apply for reinstatement, according to the state high court's 14-page attorney disciplinary proceeding.
Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Scott Jackson Crichton dissented from the court's majority, saying he would have imposed permanent disbarment. "Since her arrest in 2011, not only has [Cassibry] been apprehended again for driving under the influence, remaining after forbidden at a hotel and assaulting a police officer, she remains a fugitive from the law in both Louisiana and Mississippi as related to many of those charges," Crichton said in his dissent.
"Moreover, despite being suspended, she engaged in the unauthorized practice of law by forging an attorney’s signature on a motion in a legal proceeding [in which she sought to relieve herself of costs associated to her criminal charges]. The respondent has also never addressed any of the serious formal charges against her and has failed to appear on each occasion offered to her."
Cassibry had not applied for reinstatement following a previous suspension and was still suspended when the high court disbarred her.
Cassibry was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on Oct. 11, 1985, according to her profile at the Louisiana State Bar Association's website.
Cassibry was arrested on DWI charges in Louisiana in July 2009 and in Mississippi in January 2012, and entered guilty and no contest pleas to those charges, according to various discipline recommendations and actual disciplines handed down against her. Cassiby received probation each time but arrest warrants were issued after she allegedly violated the terms of her probation.
In May 2012 the Louisiana Supreme Court placed Cassibry on interim suspension for threat of harm and in November 2013 suspended her for a year and a day.
In June 2017 a Louisiana attorney disciplinary board hearing committee recommended Cassibry be permanently disbarred. Last December the Louisiana attorney disciplinary board recommended the state Supreme Court disbar Cassibry.