MOBILE, Alabama – A Mobile County Circuit Court judge has denied a bid to set aside a judgment requiring a woman to pay her former attorney more than $200,000 stemming from a defamation counterclaim tied to a legal malpractice dispute.
Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart scheduled an Oct. 31 hearing after the defendant argued she had not received proper notice of the attorney’s countersuit against her. According to the judge’s written order, neither the woman nor anyone representing her appeared at the scheduled hearing, despite Stewart noting the woman clearly knew about the proceeding, since she had filed a motion the day before attempting to waive her right to a hearing, a motion the court denied.
The underlying dispute traces back to a 2013 legal malpractice lawsuit the woman filed against her former attorney, accusing him of mishandling a misdemeanor criminal case in neighboring Baldwin County years earlier. That original criminal matter stemmed from a disorderly conduct incident at the Baldwin County Courthouse, for which she was ultimately found guilty.
Judge Stewart ruled in the attorney’s favor in the malpractice case and later entered a default judgment against the woman on the attorney’s counterclaim, which alleged that her lawsuit had damaged his professional reputation and that she had failed to pay outstanding legal fees. Default judgments are typically issued when a defendant fails to formally respond to allegations within the required timeframe. In September, Stewart accepted the attorney’s damages claim and ordered the woman to pay $202,500, plus an additional $360.88 in costs, for a total judgment of $202,860.88.
The woman then asked the court to set aside that judgment, arguing she had never been properly served with the countersuit. The attorney’s legal team countered that she had been served at her Florida address and provided a sworn statement from a legal assistant confirming that copies of the relevant filings had also been emailed to her directly. After the woman failed to appear at the hearing scheduled to address her objection, Judge Stewart affirmed the original judgment, writing that she could not vacate the ruling based solely on unsubstantiated allegations contained in court pleadings.
The woman said in an interview that she missed the hearing because she was in the process of moving and that the date had already been rescheduled once from its original setting. She said she intends to appeal the ruling and argued the attorney’s counterclaim should have been dismissed because it was filed after a 30-day legal deadline had passed. She described the ongoing litigation as emotionally and financially draining.
The case remains part of the public record in Mobile County Circuit Court, with an appeal process available to challenge the judge’s ruling going forward.