A Michigan discipline panel has disbarred Detroit-area attorney Gregory J. Rohl after finding he misappropriated and failed to distribute court-ordered shares of a $2.5 million wrongful-death settlement meant for the family of a 3-year-old girl killed when a cafeteria table fell on her at a Dearborn Heights preschool in 2017. Rohl was disbarred by consent effective Oct. 1, 2026, and ordered to pay $659,821.44 in restitution plus $1,446.14 in costs.
The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board issued the disbarment notice after Rohl entered no-contest pleas to all of the factual allegations and misconduct charges laid out in the formal complaint, according to alabnews.com. The panel determined that Rohl neglected a legal matter, failed to act with reasonable diligence, did not keep a client informed, and failed to promptly deliver funds owed to a client or third person. As reported by ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4, Rohl told the station he was recovering from a stroke at home.
A Table That Had Already Fallen Once
Lilliana Kerr died on Jan. 20, 2017, after a 350-pound cafeteria table fell from its wall casing at the Head Start program inside St. Albert the Great Catholic Church in Dearborn Heights, per facts cited in the ClickOnDetroit report. She was three years old and left behind a twin sister and a brother.
Her mother, Tabatha Kerr, filed a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit on behalf of her daughter's estate seeking up to $10 million, according to mlive.com. The lawsuit alleged that a mat covering one of the heavy wall tables had fallen at least 30 days before Lilliana's death and had never been refastened to the wall.
Settlement Funds Never Reached the Family
Per the Michigan discipline ruling, Tabatha Kerr's family did not receive the wrongful-death settlement intended for them. Rohl has said the settlement funds remained in his trust account and has attributed partial responsibility for the financial loss to his deceased partner and office manager, as well as to a probate attorney, telling the station his deceased partner and office manager had assumed control of the firm. He has also said he never knowingly took money from a client and accepted ultimate responsibility because the trust account was in his name.
Rohl told the station the case remained ongoing and that he believed he was entitled to an offset for funds already collected from the probate attorney. Court records referenced in the same report also describe Rohl and his firm agreeing to a consent judgment, and filing a civil complaint against a person identified only as Angie that was later dismissed under the statute of limitations, with felony charges against her reportedly never authorized by the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office and misdemeanor charges dismissed after felony charges were sought, according to Rohl's own account.
A Mother's Nine-Year Search for Answers
Tabatha Kerr, now 39, has described the last nine years as lonely, quiet, stressful, empty, hollow and defeating. She has said she is fighting both for her daughter and for information about settlement funds intended for her surviving children, and earlier this month she contacted two county prosecutors, two county attorneys general and more than 10 law-enforcement jurisdictions seeking answers.
This is not the only discipline Rohl has faced. He received a reprimand in 2024 for improperly supervising employees, a case that resulted in a five-year delay in providing a client her settlement funds. He was also suspended and convicted of disorderly conduct and malicious use of telecommunications services in 2016. Rohl opened his first law office in Novi in 1994 and had earlier worked on Dr. Jack Kevorkian's litigation defense team alongside attorney Geoffrey Fieger in the 1990s.
Pushing for Lilliana's Law
Kerr has channeled her grief into advocacy, producing a 510-page research book cataloging school risks across Michigan and the United States and collecting nearly 32,300 signatures in support of proposed Lilliana's Law. She has testified in Lansing on behalf of the measure, which would require annual health and safety inspections at public and private school facilities and establish a statewide registry for school safety incidents.
State Rep. Ryan Berman introduced the current version of the bill and has said school safety is the top concern and that public dollars should go toward it. A separate legislative analysis described an earlier version, House Bill 4167, as a proposal to add a section to the Revised School Code titled Lilliana's Law, according to legislature.mi.gov. A Fox 2 Detroit report noted the proposed inspections would cost the state $3 million to cover health and safety violations, and that the bill had been stuck in committee since May, according to fox2detroit.com.
