Orange Park attorney Kenneth A. Jenkins has been publicly reprimanded following a Jan. 11 Florida Supreme Court order regarding allegations that he for years didn't adequately communicate with a client, according to a recent announcement by The Florida Bar.
"After being retained by a client, Jenkins failed to adequately communicate," the state bar said in its Feb. 27 announcement of the discipline and the Supreme Court's order. "He did not return calls, was absent from his office or provided vague statements such as 'I’m looking into things'. It took four years for Jenkins to file a suit in court on the client’s behalf."
In its two-page order, the state high vourt approved an uncontested referee's report filed in the matter before reprimanding Jenkins and ordered him to pay almost $1,723 in costs.
Jenkins was admitted to the Florida bar Sept. 25, 2008, according to his profile at the state bar website. No prior discipline before the state bar is listed on Jenkins' state bar profile.
The client initially met with Jenkins in late 2013, shortly after the client was injured on the job when he fell from a ladder, according to the consent judgment filed with the court. The consent judgment also includes Jenkins's conditional guilty plea.
The following January, Jenkins provided the client with general instructions as his firm took on the new case, according to the consent judgment. From that point until last summer, the client "had difficulty reaching" Jenkins and twice provided his medical paperwork as the client "and his family tried for years to get the case information from [Jenkins] with very little success," the consent judgment said.
"Whether it was unreturned phone calls, being absent from his office or providing [the client] with vague statements, such as 'I am waiting for the other side to reply' or 'I am looking into things', [Jenkins] failed to accomplish anything on the [client]'s behalf"
Jenkins filed the client's lawsuit in July 2017, "well after" the client had filed a grievance with the state bar "and on the virtual eve of the statute of limitations expiring," the consent judgment said.