A loyal aide to Mayor Adrian Fenty has left the administration after being accused by local bar authorities of lying under oath in a multi million-dollar divorce case and being stripped of his law license.
Garrett Lee was disbarred last week after being charged by the D.C. Bar Counsel with gross negligence, incompetence, false statements and perjury. The D.C. Bar Counsel is the top legal ethics monitor in the District.
The allegations against him, first reported by the Legal Times newspaper, stemmed from a divorce between Xavier Jordan and Marina Zoob. Lee, then in private practice and representing Jordan, blew off deadlines and ignored motions for contempt, jeopardizing his client’s case, according to Bar Counsel documents.
He was also subject to an ethics complaint from another client but he didn’t respond to Bar Counsel’s queries, according to a separate complaint.
Jordan would lose primary custody of his daughter and was ordered to pay his estranged wife’s legal bills and to reimburse her for her investment in a pair of apartments the couple bought. Lee missed deadlines to contest the apartment fees and Jordan had to raid his investment funds to pay off the debt. In 2005, Jordan filed a legal malpractice claim against Lee.
The Bar Counsel would later claim that Lee lied under oath when he denied making critical errors in Jordan’s case.
He was hired by then-D.C. Councilman Fenty as a special counsel to the D.C. Council’s Human Services Committee in 2006. That gave him a critical role in the attempted reform of a dilapidated bureaucracy responsible for protecting the city’s most vulnerable children.
After Fenty became mayor, Lee eventually rose to become deputy general counsel, making him one of Fenty’s most important legal advisers. He also helped the bureaucracy fend off open-records complaints.
In an e-mail to The Examiner, Lee declined comment. He told the Legal Times that he was working with his sister at Color Me Mine, a paint-your-own pottery studio.
Fenty spokeswoman Carrie Brooks did not respond to requests seeking comment.
