NEW ORLEANS (Louisiana Record) — New Orleans attorney Tracey Michel Favorite faces possible disbarment following a Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board (LADB) recommendation to the state Supreme Court over allegations she wrote bad checks over two years.
The LADB also recommended that Favorite "be ordered to pay full restitution for any losses caused by her actions described in the formal charges to the extent restitution has not yet been made," said the 24-page recommendation issued June 28. The LADB also recommended Favorite be ordered to pay costs and expenses in the disciplinary matter.
The formal charges brought by the office of disciplinary counsel alleged Favorite violated professional conduct rules, including those regarding commission of a criminal act and dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.
The LADB's recommendation follows a hearing committee's legal conclusions and its own recommendations filed in December. "With one exception, the factual findings of the committee are supported by the record," the LADB recommendation said.
"The only exception relates to the time frame during which the respondent issued worthless checks. The evidence shows a pattern of multiple worthless checks being issued by the respondent in the three-year period from 2014 to 2016, not the period from 2015 to 2017 as found by the committee."
Favorite was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on April 25, 2013, according to her profile at the Louisiana State Bar Association's website. "It is noted that while [Favorite] has no record of imposition of formal discipline, in 2015, [Favorite] agreed to enter into a diversion program prior to formal charges being filed by the office of disciplinary counsel for violation of Rule 1.15(d) (safekeeping and prompt delivery of third party funds) based on her purportedly failing to promptly pay a health care provider from settlement proceeds," the LADB recommendation said.
In December 2017, an LADB hearing committee recommended Favorite be disbarred over allegations she issued multiple worthless checks over a three-year period in Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish, which resulted in criminal felony charges filed in Jefferson Parish and attachments issued for her arrest.