Attorney Randall P Harrison was in court Thursday, representing Calder Pinkston, the real estate lawyer whose practice was rocked late last year, after his office manager was allegedly murdered in the attempted cover-up of an embezzlement scheme.

Four people have been charged with the murder of 58-year-old Gail Spencer, who was found suffocated to death in her Macon home in October. One of the people charged is Pinkston's former closing secretary Tracy Jones, who has also been charged with embezzling around $1.4 million from the law firm.

"His whole office was wiped out, and it has been shut down since that arrest occurred," Harrison said."He had people in his office that were experienced and dedicated employees that you put trust in, and you hope that the trust is always valid and relied upon, and what we had was a breach of the very basic trust that you can't imagine that ever happening."

Harrison says Pinkston has been working to recover the stolen funds, but around $69,000 is still unaccounted for. He says the suspects had debit cards to the accounts with stolen money, but the District Attorney's Office has not yet tracked what the missing money was spent on.

Pinkston's financial obligations include money owed to a title insurance group, which according to legal documents is asking it be paid around $700,000. Harrison and attorneys for the insurance group were in court Thursday trying to work out a deal.

According to Harrison there is enough money in Pinkston's trust account to pay off the insurance group, but the lawyer wants to make sure enough money will be available to cover all his financial obligations.

"There has never been any unwillingness on Mr. Pinkston's part to facilitate the claims of those payments that are due, as far as the payoffs are concerned. The question has become what funds are available right now, then how we can facilitate that to happen," Harrison says.

Harrison also added that the insurance group and Pinkston have had a great working relationship in the past, and both groups expect to keep working with each other in the future.

Harrison says a settlement has not been agreed on yet, but he's hopeful an arrangement can be worked out soon, and Pinkston's law practice can be restored.

"He's an impeccable closing attorney and he's always done a good job for his clients, and this is just an unfortunate thing," Harrison said.