ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday suspended former state Court of Appeals Judge Christian Coomer’s law license for two years.
The suspension will expire in August of next year, two years after the state Supreme Court removed Coomer from the Court of Appeals based on the recommendation of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC). A commission hearing panel had found Coomer’s misuse of campaign funds and dealings with a client before he became a judge undermined public confidence.
Coomer, a Republican and former state legislator, was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2018 and elected to a full six-year term in 2020. Later that year, the JQC charged him with violating the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct, and he was suspended from the bench with pay in January 2021 pending the outcome of the case.
The JQC recommended removing Coomer from the bench following a three-month hearing.
The charges against Coomer stemmed from his relationship with James Filhart, an elderly client he began representing in 2015. Filhart hired Coomer to pursue an action for guardianship of Filhart’s girlfriend, according to the court ruling.
After the matter was resolved successfully, Coomer continued to represent Filhart in other legal matters, including drafting a will that named Coomer and his heirs among the beneficiaries and Coomer as executor and trustee.
Coomer also accepted several loans from Filhart, including a loan of $130,000 in 2018 to a business Coomer controlled that lacked assets, the ruling stated. The loan was not secured, and Coomer provided no personal guarantee.
By 2019, the relationship between the two men had soured, and Filhart e-mailed Coomer demanding that the judge return the money he had borrowed. Coomer repaid the loan in 2020 after Filhart filed a lawsuit against him.
Coomer also was accused of transferring campaign funds to his law firm’s operating account and, in two instances, failing to report the transfers on his campaign contributions disclosure report. A third instance involved a trip to Hawaii before Coomer left the General Assembly that he said was for legislative business but ultimately was found to have been for leisure, according to the ruling.
Coomer reimbursed his campaign account for expenses from the trip after the state Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission began investigating him.
The State Bar of Georgia agreed that the two-year suspension of Coomer’s law license was “appropriate and sufficient,” according to the 24-page ruling the state Supreme Court handed down Tuesday. Coomer had agreed to the suspension by entering a petition for voluntary discipline.