A New Jersey lawyer has been censured for telling a nonpaying client he wouldn’t prepare for his impending trial if he didn’t pay his legal bills and he should “have fun in prison.”
The New Jersey Supreme Court censured lawyer Logan Terry in a Nov. 1 order, the Legal Profession Blog reports. The court accepted the recommendation of the Disciplinary Review Board, which described the case in a June 8 decision.
Terry had twice asked a judge to allow him to withdraw from the representation and was turned down both times.
Terry’s client was accused of sexual assaults on four minors under age 13. He faced a potential sentence of more than 200 years in prison. Just days before the scheduled trial date in June 2016, Terry told the client that he couldn’t prepare an adequate defense unless his legal fees were paid.