‘He turned into a monster’: Alleged victims of Albany attorney speak out

ALBANY – Lying about settlement money, falsifying documents and signatures, and using client funds for personal matters are just some of the damning allegations that have come out against an Albany attorney since complaints with the Georgia State Bar become public.

Joseph Durham Jr., an Albany attorney who’s been a member of the State Bar since 2003, is named in three separate complaints, alleging that he committed three separate ethics violations. The misappropriation of more than a cumulative $2 million from various clients is among these claims. 

Durham asked for a temporary suspension of his law license Monday after the State Bar filed a petition for an emergency suspension on Sept. 9 on the basis that he “poses a substantial threat of harm to his clients or the public.” Durham faces permanent disbarment if the Supreme Court of Georgia finds the allegations against him to be true. 

Alleged victims included in the bar complaints are hoping for further consequences.

“He needs to be disbarred, and he needs to be arrested and locked up for what he’s done,” Franklin “Bubba” Workman, one of Durham’s former clients, said. “He needs to be in prison.” 

Workman and his wife, Jamye Workman, both sought Durham’s help for divorce cases in prior marriages. The two said Durham was recommended by friends who trusted him. Jamye Workman had hired him to sort out a family inheritance matter, though she never saw a conclusion for the matter. 

In the summer of 2022, Durham separately asked both Bubba and Jamye Workman to come to his office to sign papers, the couple said. Both were presented with blank signature pages during their visits, just one page with no notary indication. Both said they assumed they were signing documentation related to their divorce cases. Both remember Durham saying the same thing.

“I said ‘Joe what is this?’ He said, ‘We may or may not need it,’” Bubba Workman said. 

Jamye Workman said she had a gut feeling something was off. 

“But I trusted Joe,” she said. “If he would have told me to sign 100 pages, I would have. When you have an attorney, and you’re going through something as hard as a divorce, you don’t question, ‘Should I be signing this?’”

A few months later the Workmans received a call from one of the members of the Lee family that is named in one of the complaints against Durham as victims of frivolous pleadings “merely to harass and injure.” 

The complaint alleges Durham sent a letter to the Lee family threatening to “publicize scandalous allegations (all of which appeared irrelevant to the lawsuit)” if the family failed to pay Durham $250,000. The complaint also reads that the family incurred about $145,000 in legal fees defending the lawsuit.

Durham had produced affidavits against the Lees with both the Workmans’ signatures. The Workmans had no knowledge of these affidavits. 

“I sent Joe a text message … ‘I’m not sure what the hell you’ve got me and Jamye into with the Lee boys and their attorney calling us, but please find a way to get us out of it,’” Bubba Workman said. “‘Neil Lee farmed our land … I’ve known him forever … like a second daddy to me, and we are tied in with business dealings. I want no part of this.’”

The Workmans later testified in court that they had no knowledge of the affidavits and that they were falsified. Jamye Workman said Durham aggressively cross-examined them and used confidential matters from her divorce – that he defended her for – against her. 

“He was just trying to paint a terrible picture of me,” she said. 

The Workmans had already paid Durham for their divorce proceedings – $5,000 each, in cash as requested by Durham, but after they testified and after they’d either finalized their divorces or hired another attorney to handle them, Durham hit them with other invoices, upwards of $11,000. They said they believe this was in retaliation for their testimony. 

They filed a bar complaint against Durham. Jamye Workman said the entire ordeal has been scary and shocking. 

“It’s ruined me,” she said. “I catch myself not trusting people. I think he’s dangerous, and the deeper he gets, the more dangerous he’s going to become ”

Charnae Clay’s family sought legal help from Durham while mourning the loss of two family members. Clay’s aunts were killed in 2022 while being shuttled by a commercial van that transported people to work from Terrell County to the Tyson Foods plant in Vienna. Clay said the van was being operated illegally by “someone Durham had sued before.”

Durham would go on to obtain settlements totaling $44,000 from one of the liable drivers, but he did so without obtaining the required written, informed consent from the victims’ families.

Clay said red flags were raised when Durham wasn’t communicating clearly, repeatedly rescheduled meetings and wouldn’t provide updates. 

The complaint alleges he failed to promptly inform the families about the settlements or distribute the funds to them. Instead, he deposited the checks into his IOLTA (trust) account with the Bank of Dawson and began disbursing funds — primarily to himself — without any transparent accounting to his clients. He allegedly forged his clients’ signatures to do this.

The complaint notes that “the Bank of Dawson failed to notify the State Bar’s Overdraft Coordinator this and subsequent overdrafts due to the relationship that it had with Respondent (Durham) which ultimately caused the State Bar to revoke the bank’s authorization to maintain lawyer trust accounts for a suitable period.”

Financial records revealed significant discrepancies. Although $44,000 was deposited, the account balance quickly dropped, with very little remaining just weeks later, according to the complaint. Charnae Clay’s aunt, Lucille Clay, only learned of a $19,000 settlement in July 2024 through a notice from the insurance company. Another relative, Nakesha White, learned about a $25,000 settlement around the same time and raised concerns about unexplained charges and the attorney’s failure to pursue other liable parties. 

When Clay terminated Durham’s services and filed grievances against him in October 2024, she said chaos ensued. 

“He turned into a monster,” she said. “He started threatening me.”

Clay has saved threatening emails and surveillance footage of Durham showing up at one of her family member’s houses, banging on doors and windows trying to get her to come out of her house.

“She lives alone, and she’s elderly, and he was very aggressive,” Clay said. 

Durham tried suing her family for defamation of character. She said Durham even divided her family, convincing some family members to trust him.

“So I’ve been fighting on my own for my family, on both sides,” Clay said. “I’ve been having to file petitions. I’ve been having to write the court … object to his subpoenas.”

Both Clay and the Workmans said they feel relieved that Durham’s misconduct is coming to light. Since their complaints became public, both families said they’ve connected with a number of other potential victims of Durham’s wrongdoing. 

Durham has seven pending cases against him, and Jamye Workman said she believes more people will come forward. She said she wishes she would have told her story sooner to save more people. 

“I think he’s been doing these things for so long, and he just slipped up and it’s opened the floodgates,” she said. “I think this is going to turn into something crazier than any of us could have ever imagined. I think he has wronged so many people. I don’t know that justice could ever be fully served.” 

Clay said it’s been a bittersweet progression. She said her family plans to pursue a legal malpractice case against Durham.

“I feel like I was being a voice for others that couldn’t speak or that were afraid to speak, or just didn’t know how to come forward,” she said. “He took advantage of my family. He mistreated my family. I won’t let him get away with it.”