West Palm Beach attorney Mirta Desir has been disbarred following a May 11 Florida Supreme Court order over Desir's alleged failure to communicate with clients, not giving a full refund, withholding a file and refusing a bar arbitrator's order to issue funds from a settlement.
One of the client cases was dismissed when Desire failed to provide proper service to defendants, according to the Florida State Bar's 17-page formal complaint filed with the state supreme court. A state bar audit also found no evidence that a monetary settlement had been deposited in Desir's trust account and she failed to respond to bar inquiries, according to the complaint.
The state bar announced the discipline and the Supreme Court's order June 29.
Desir was admitted to the bar in Florida on June 20, 2011, according to her profile at the state bar website. Desir was twice suspended prior to being disbarred, according to information in her state bar website profile. In February 2016, she was suspended for failing to respond to state bar inquiries. The following May, Desir was suspended for failing to respond to a show cause order.
Desir was under suspension when the state Supreme Court handed down its most recent order, which made her disbarment effective immediately.
In one case described in the formal complaint, Desir accused a client she'd been unable to serve within the required 120 days of being out of the country and attempting to evade service. The court found those accusations baseless and that it constituted constitute a breach of an attorney's fiduciary duty. The case eventually was dismissed and could not be refiled because the statute of limitations was reached.
In another case, a civil matter for she Desire's client paid her $2,760, Desir "took little significant action in the case" and "documents she did draft were replete with errors," the complaint said. After the client eventually fired her, Desir refunded only $1,000 and didn't return a requested file, according to the complaint.
In a third case, after Desir failed to pay a client $12,790 that an arbitrator ruled in June 2015 was due, a state bar audit was unable to identify any funds from a settled had been deposited on behalf of the client as had been report, according to the complaint.