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Jared Jenkins, town attorney for Goshen and former city attorney for Lexington, is under investigation by the Virginia State Bar Association in relation to a case in the town of Iron Gate, which Jenkins also represents.
According to an article that ran in the Sept. 7 edition of The Recorder, the newspaper that covers Bath, Highland and Alleghany counties, Jenkins made an announcement about the investigation at an Iron Gate Town Council meeting the week before.
The complaint, he said, was filed against him for challenges he’s made to attorney’s fees incurred during the town’s ongoing legal case against town resident Jennifer Simpson. On July 13, Alleghany County Circuit Court Judge Ed Stein awarded Simpson $184,000 in attorney’s fees in addition to $37,000 she was awarded in April. The suit, filed by Simpson against the town, is regarding alleged damage to her property caused by an underground pipe installed by the Virginia Department of Transportation several decades ago.
“The bar has sent me a letter, they are opening an investigation into this, into my behavior and, of course, I think we all know it is completely ludicrous,” Jenkins said to Council, according to the article in The Recorder. “It’s kind of hard to believe what people will think up or believe, but all of this is clearly public record. We’ve got the orders that clearly state this is the amount of the attorney’s fees, so I would have to be a complete idiot to think that I can get away with something like this if I was trying to do this in some way. Personally, I read it more as a complaint against Judge Stein, that there is clearly something going on here that these are the amount of attorney’s fees that have been awarded. There is clearly something wrong, as we have discussed multiple times. I hope the investigation is relatively short and sweet when they see the order that says, in fact, these are the attorney’s fees that have been awarded.”
