Christian Coomer Removed

Christian Coomer, then a lawyer and later a Georgia Court of Appeals judge, represented an elderly client named James Filhart starting in 2015. Coomer continued representing Filhart in various legal matters — including drafting Filhart's will, which named Coomer and Coomer's own heirs among the beneficiaries, and named Coomer himself as the will's executor and trustee.

The Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission charged Coomer with violating the state's Code of Judicial Conduct over this arrangement, along with separate findings about his misuse of campaign funds. He was suspended from the bench, with pay, in January 2021 while the case proceeded.

In August 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the JQC hearing panel's recommendation and formally removed Coomer from the Court of Appeals, finding that his conduct — representing an elderly client while positioning himself and his family to inherit from that client's estate — undermined public confidence in the judiciary.