NEW ORLEANS — Ponchatoula attorney Sherry Alane King received a fully-deferred suspension following a Sept. 28 Louisiana Supreme Court decision after allegations she falsified a court document.
The high court handed down a fully-deferred six-months suspension and a year of unsupervised probation, during which King will be required to attend the state bar's ethics school, according to the court's single-page attorney disciplinary proceeding. King's probationary period will begin the date she and the office of disciplinary counsel execute a formal probation plan, according to the attorney disciplinary proceeding.
"Any failure of [King] to comply with the conditions of probation, or any misconduct during the probationary period, may be grounds for making the deferred suspension executory, or imposing additional discipline, as appropriate," the document states.
The court also ordered King to pay all costs and expenses in the matter.
The Supreme Court accepted a joint petition for consent discipline reached between King and the office of disciplinary counsel, according to proceeding. The joint petition for consent discipline was reached before formal charges were filed..
State Supreme Court Justice James T. Genovese and Justice Marcus R. Clark issued a single-sentence dissent from the majority court decision, saying they would have rejected the joint petition for consent discipline. The justices did not indicate why they would reject the petition for consent discipline.
The petition for consent discipline was preceded by an office of disciplinary counsel investigation into allegations that King "prepared a falsified document and filed it into the court record in support of a motion to continue," according to the court documents.
King was admitted to the bar in Louisiana on Oct. 8, 1993 and maintains a law office on Azalea Drive in Ponchatoula, according to her profile on the Louisiana State Bar Association's website. No prior discipline was listed on her state bar profile.