•🧑⚖️ Who: Former Representative Matt Gaetz and The Florida Bar
•📄 What: Disciplinary investigation following an Ethics Committee report
•📅 When: Report released December 23, 2024; ongoing investigation
•📍 Where: Florida; Bar proceedings handled through Tallahassee branch
•❓ Why: Allegations of rule violations stemming from the U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee findings
The Florida Bar has confirmed to Mid Bay News they have a disciplinary investigation against former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz. They also confirmed the investigation regarding the report published by the U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee released on Dec. 23, 2024.
Gaetz, a Niceville High School graduate who represented the district from 2016 to 2024 before resigning, was nominated by President-Elect Donald Trump to serve as Attorney General. He withdrew his nomination on Nov. 21. The president-elect has nominated another Floridian, Pam Bondi, to serve in the role.
Gaetz’s status as an attorney will not change, barring a judgment after a byzantine quasi-legal process that we detail below.
A special primary election will be held on Jan. 28 to decide whether the Republican nominee will replace Gaetz in Congress. The contest winner, featuring 10 candidates, will face off against Democrat Gay Valimont. Valimont doesn’t have a challenger for the Democratic mantle. The Republican primary winner and Valimont will face each other and three write-in candidates in the general election on April Fool’s Day.
Before his time in Congress, Gaetz was a member of the Florida House. His time in the Florida House overlapped with his father, Don Gaetz, who served as President of the Florida Senate.
The elder Gaetz is now the State Senator for Florida’s State Senate District 1, which includes Escambia, Santa Rosa, and northwestern Okaloosa Counties.
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A disciplinary investigation can have a variety of results but very rarely ends in a disbarment.
A minute fraction of attorneys in Florida get disbarred every year – and the number has trended downward for the last five fiscal years.
In Fiscal Year 23-24, just 18 attorneys were disbarred by the Florida State Supreme Court – .02% of all attorneys in the state. Of those 18, only two were permanently disbarred.
Of attorneys with files opened against them, 3,659 total in Fiscal Year 23-24, the court disbarred 18, only .4%.
A disciplinary investigation is a formal process that takes place after someone or a group accuses a Florida Bar member of improper conduct.
These claims can come from current or former clients, lawyers, judges, and others. The Bar can also initiate these cases themselves.
Every year, The Florida Bar gets about 16,500 of these accusations – about a quarter of them result in the opening of an investigation.
If the Bar decides that the allegations, if true, violate the Florida Bar’s rules for lawyers, they create a file and notify the lawyer that a response to the complaints is due in the next 15 days.
If the accused attorney responds, the person or group that filed the complaint gets the chance to rebut the claims made by the attorney.
Suppose the Florida Bar decides that the case continues to have merit based on the above back and forth. In that case, they forward it to the Bar’s branch office, where the lawyer practices. The branch for lawyers practicing in northwest Florida is in Tallahassee – and Gaetz’s case would be handled here.
If the court determines discipline isn’t warranted, the case is closed. The Bar’s legal counsel can recommend diversionary measures like ethics school if the case is considered a minor violation. Suppose Gaetz or any other attorney were to receive diversionary measures. In that case, the matter gets erased from their record one year after the case is closed. Suppose the Bar determines there is enough reason to move forward. In that case, the case gets forwarded to the grievance committee for additional investigation.
If the case passes muster at the Bar’s branch office in Tallahassee, the case goes in front of a grievance committee. This committee is based in the district, and one-third of the members are not attorneys.
The committee chair would assign a single member to investigate the issue. That member would then interview witnesses and review other documents or evidence. From there, the single member would make a recommendation to the rest of the committee.
The committee then decides whether or not there is probable cause that the bar member violated the rules of the Florida Bar and whether or not the Bar will discipline the member.
They can decide that there is no probable cause – in which case, the Bar drops the issue.
They can also recommend mediation between groups in the case, issue a finding of minor misconduct, divert the case to a professionalism enhancement program, or defer the case until the end of a civil or criminal trial.
Minor misconduct, according to this Florida Bar document, is anything that does not involve:
Finally, the committee can decide to file a formal complaint against the attorney with the Supreme Court of Florida.
Once the case has passed the Grievance Committee, it goes before the Florida Bar Board of Governors. These elected board members review cases before their local grievance committees and must review and approve the committee’s actions.
A member of the Board of Governors can request the grievance committee to reconsider the issue within 30 days of their decision. Any member of the Board can ask for a review of any case and a debate on the case’s merits.
At this point, the Florida Bar’s counsel and the accused lawyer can agree on a consent judgment with sanctions for the latter. The Board of Governors can overturn the Grievance Committee’s decision.
Suppose the designated reviewer on the Board of Governors doesn’t act. In that case, the Bar files a charge with the Florida Supreme Court and proceeds to trial.
At this point, a judge or retired judge called a referee for these proceedings, is brought in to conduct a kind of trial of the attorney concerning the accusations. The referee hears witnesses, inspects evidence, and reviews documents. After reviewing the situation, the referee creates a report indicating whether they think the accused is guilty.
From there, The Board of Governors reviews the referee’s findings and recommendations and they are sent to the Florida Supreme Court.
From there, the Florida Supreme Court must review and approve the findings before discipline can be enforced on the attorney.
Gaetz announced that he would begin work as the primetime headliner for the One America News Network (OAN). His show, The Matt Gaetz Show, airs on the network at 9:00 PM Eastern Time.
Gaetz has also floated a run for Governor in 2026, according to The New York Times’ reporting.
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