L. Lin Wood, attorney who tried to reverse Trump’s 2020 loss, gives up license

L. Lin Wood, one of the leading attorneys who tried to reverse former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election loss and faced potential disciplinary action in Georgia as a result, chose to revoke his law license in the state at to give.

According to a letter posted on the Telegram messaging platform, Mr. Wood officially petitioned the State Bar of Georgia to transfer his attorney status to “retired” on July 4. The request was approved and two pending disciplinary charges against him were dropped, according to a letter from Georgia’s Office of the General Counsel sent to Mr. Wood also posted on Telegram.

Mr Wood, a former libel lawyer who became an ardent supporter of Mr Trump, has faced his own set of legal troubles since joining Mr Trump’s campaign to use the justice system to overturn the 2020 results making, following falsehoods that there was widespread voter fraud.

The Georgia State Bar wrote in documents filed with the state Supreme Court that Mr. Wood’s retirement “had achieved the goals of disciplinary action, including the protection of the public and the integrity of the judiciary and legal profession.”

Mr Wood wrote on Telegram that the Bar had “agreed to drop the disciplinary cases” if he retired. In an interview with The Times, he said he would have liked to retire earlier, but legal proceedings from cases filed around the 2020 election prevented him from doing so.

“I wish I could have done it two years ago,” he said. “I was tired of being a lawyer. I had enough of it.”

The letters Mr. Wood posted to Telegram specified that his request was “unqualified, irrevocable and permanent” and that Mr. Wood could not practice law in any state. However, he is allowed to represent himself in future cases as long as he does not present himself as a lawyer.

Mr. Wood had been a licensed attorney in Georgia since 1977. His status is now listed as “retired” on the State Bar website, with no public discipline.

Mr. Wood has filed a federal lawsuit to stop Georgia’s certification of the November 2020 election, which was blocked by a federal judge that year. His name subsequently appeared in lawsuits against election results in several other states.

The State Bar opened an investigation into Mr Wood for disciplinary action in 2021 and held a disciplinary trial earlier this year. Mr. Wood sued the association after it tried to get a mental health exam as part of its investigation, but lost in a federal appeals court.

He was one of several attorneys facing $175,000 in penalties and a recommendation for possible disbarment or suspension in Michigan for filing a lawsuit that a judge found in 2021 “threatened to undermine the results of legitimately held national elections” .

Mr. Wood claimed that he was not involved in that lawsuit, but that another lawyer had added his name to documents filed in that case and several others.

Last year Mr. Wood to testify in the Fulton County District Attorney’s investigation into Mr. Trump to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. There have been signs that charges related to that investigation could be issued in August.