TALLAHASSEE (Florida Record) — Orlando attorney Christine G. Bauer has been indefinitely suspended following May 25 Florida Supreme Court orders over allegations related to an investigation into her practice, as described in recent documents filed by The Florida Bar.
In separate orders issued May 25, the state Supreme Court granted state bar petition for contempt and an order to show cause, along with a separate petition for emergency suspension against Bauer. Both petitions indefinitely suspended Bauer.
"Bauer was found in contempt for non-compliance and failure to comply with a grievance committee subpoena," the state bar said in its June 29 announcement of the discipline and the Supreme Court's decision to suspend the attorney. "Bauer was required to produce her trust account records."
In Florida court orders are not final until time to file a rehearing motion expires. Filing such a motion would not alter the effective date of Bauer's suspension.
Bauer was admitted to the bar in Florida on May 8, 2006, according to her profile at the state bar website. No prior discipline before the state bar is listed on Bauer's state bar profile.
In its 28-page petition for emergency suspension, the state bar alleged Bauer "is causing great public harm" and that she "has a significant shortage in her trust account, has abandoned her law practice and has made misrepresentations to the bar during its investigation."
The state bar's audit of Bauer's trust account began after a complaints by one of her clients and the client's former wife this past March, alleging that Bauer "took an unreasonable length of time to disburse proceeds" from the sale of a marital home during a 2015 marriage dissolution case. Bauer is alleged to have failed to timely disburse funds she was holding in her trust account pending final judgment in the case and to provide an accounting of those funds.
Bauer's trust account should contain the more than $41,016 in the case but the accounts balance at the end of January 2017 was only about $8,258, according to the petition.