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Judiciary

Missouri judge suspended for ‘grossly untimely performance of his duties’ while deflecting blame

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 5, 2025, 9:23 am CST

Updated: A Missouri judge has been suspended for a year without pay for taking years to issue some rulings while falsely telling judicial regulators and attorneys that he had delivered judgments to court clerks in unresolved cases.

The Missouri Supreme Court suspended Judge Joe Don McGaugh of Carroll County, Missouri, in a Feb. 28 opinion that ordered a higher suspension than the six months sought by the Missouri Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline.

The Missouri Independent and KTTN have coverage.

The state supreme court accepted the commission’s recommendation that McGaugh must submit to an independent mental health exam before the end of his suspension. The results will determine whether McGaugh enters a disability retirement or resumes work with continued monitoring of his treatment.

In some instances, McGaugh took as long as five to six years to issue rulings after taking cases under advisement.

“This is an egregious case of multiple instances in which a judge completely failed to timely perform his duties,” the Missouri Supreme Court said in an opinion by Judge Ginger K. Gooch.

McGaugh’s “performance issues extend well beyond his own grossly untimely performance of his duties,” Gooch said. “The uncontested allegations also establish he was untruthful with attorneys, parties and the commission on multiple occasions. He repeatedly failed to respond to court staff and, even worse, blamed court staff when he knew he failed to perform his judicial duties.”

In one instance, McGaugh told the commission that he had submitted a judgment to his law clerks and would follow up when he returns from the state fair the following week. The state supreme court noted that judicial duties are required to take precedence over personal activities.

The state supreme court identified 10 cases in which McGaugh dragged his feet on rulings. The delays “directly harmed multiple parties, among them some of Missouri’s most vulnerable citizens, including families and children; those facing financial difficulties; and those seeking orders of protection,” the state supreme court said.

In one case, an attorney told McGaugh that a divorce litigant’s mortgage was in default, and she could lose her home in foreclosure without a judgment. McGaugh took the case under advisement in September 2021 but did not rule until 2024.

McGaugh was even slower to rule in some of the other cases cited by the Missouri Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline.

In one instance, McGaugh took a motion to modify child custody and support under advisement in April 2018 but did not enter a judgment until April 2024. In another, he took two consolidated cases involving minor guardianship and child custody in May 2019 and issued a judgment in one of the cases in April 2024. The judgment in the other case was still pending at the time that the commission made its allegations.

McGaugh had admitted the allegations and offered to attend mental health counseling, as well as judge training. He had requested a suspension of only three months but later changed his request to no suspension or a suspension served under a disability retirement.

The Missouri Supreme Court said it had no authority to convert a suspension proceeding to a disability retirement, but the commission could conduct future disability proceedings.

Two dissenting judges said the state supreme court did not have constitutional authority to deviate from the six-month suspension recommended by the commission. If it was constitutionally permissible, one of the dissenters said, he would vote to remove McGaugh from office.

McGaugh was a former state lawmaker who began serving as a judge in 2017.

A clerk who answered an ABA Journal phone call to the state supreme court said McGaugh is no longer there. A contact number for McGaugh was not listed in the Missouri bar directory.

McGaugh did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal email sent to a court address provided by the commission.

Updated March 5 at 1:28 p.m. to report that Judge Joe Don McGaugh of Carroll County, Missouri, did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s email.

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Homeowners have started filing lawsuits against the Southern California Edison utility company, claiming it’s responsible for one of the blazes that tore through the Los Angeles area last week — the deadly Eaton Fire — citing alleged witness accounts and videos from social media that show flames breaking out underneath transmission towers.

“Based upon our investigation, our discussions with various consultants, the public statements of SCE, and the video evidence of the fire’s origin, we believe that the Eaton Fire was ignited because of SCE’s failure to de-energize its overhead wires, which traverse Eaton Canyon,” said Richard Bridgford, attorney with the Newport Beach law firm Bridgford, Gleason and Artinian, in a statement Monday after filing a lawsuit on behalf of Altadena homeowner Jeremy Gursey in Los Angeles Superior Court.

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Law Firms

At least 30 large law firms have announced leadership changes in the past year; is burnout to blame?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 20, 2023, 8:18 am CST

At least 30 large law firms announced leadership changes in the past year or so, corresponding to a period in which firms are focused on growth.

Law.com addressed reasons for the turnover.

“Some have suggested burnout could be to blame, or that some firms could have delayed leadership changes until after the pandemic, or that a generational transition was in order,” Law.com reports.

“Each firm’s leadership turnover is rooted in different causes, of course, but they all manifest in an era where firms have ‘never been more keenly focused on growth,’” the article reports, citing legal industry analysts.

One leader stepping down is Elliott Portnoy, the CEO at Dentons, who has announced that he plans to relinquish his post when his current term ends in November 2024. He remarked in an interview with Law.com that even one year on the job can seem like several.

“Without sounding too glib, law firm leadership feels a bit like dog years in terms of how they’re measured,” Portnoy said. “In fact, a full year is a pretty long time.”

Other firms recently announcing leadership changes include Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Boies Schiller Flexner; Proskauer Rose; Loeb & Loeb; and Norton Rose Fulbright.

Brad Karp, the chair at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, told Law.com earlier this year that he expects that extended terms for firm leaders will decline in popularity because the “burnout risk is too great and the pressures too significant.”

But Brad Hildebrandt, the chair at Hildebrandt Consulting, said he didn’t get the sense that leaders are leaving because of the overwhelming nature of the job. He knows many firm leaders who have decided to step down, he told Law.com.

With few exceptions, “all of these people are retiring or are on term limits. It wasn’t because they were tired or didn’t want to do” the job, Hildebrandt said.