Professional Discipline

The Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility, an arm of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, assists the court in discharging its exclusive constitutional responsibility to supervise the practice of law in this state and to protect the public from acts of professional misconduct by attorneys licensed to practice in Wisconsin. The board is composed of eight lawyers and four nonlawyer members, and its offices are located at Room 410, 110 E. Main St., Madison, WI 53703, and Room 102, 611 N. Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

Public reprimand of Charles E. Brady

A client had a long-standing relationship with a law firm with which Charles E. Brady was associated. From 1985 to 1987, Brady represented the client and his wife in an estate for which the client was the personal representative, and the client and his wife were the sole beneficiaries. The estate was completed in approximately July 1987. As recently as 1993, Brady and his firm represented the client in other matters.

In March 1987, June 1987 and September 1987, Brady requested and received loans from the client totaling $25,000. Brady signed interest-bearing promissory notes for the loans. Beginning in 1988, Brady executed several renewal notes for the unpaid loans, including accrued interest not paid. The most recent renewal note was issued Oct. 1, 1993 for $35,857. For each of the 1987 loans and the 1993 note, Brady failed to fully disclose his financial situation to the client. Brady has made no interest payments to the client since October 1989, and he has made no principal payments.

The Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility (BAPR) determined that Brady violated SCR 20.27(1)(1984) and SCR 20:1.8(a)(1). BAPR found that because there was not full disclosure of Brady's financial situation, the loan transactions were not fair and reasonable to the client, nor could the client make informed decisions about the loans or renewal notes.

Disciplinary proceeding against Jeffrey I. Gehl

The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended the law license of Jeffrey Gehl, 36, Chicago, Ill., for three years, commencing Dec. 19, 1997. The suspension was reciprocal to a three-year license revocation imposed by the Illinois Supreme Court, which was effective Nov. 26, 1996.

Following the commencement of disciplinary proceedings in Illinois, Gehl filed a motion seeking the voluntary revocation of his license in that state. The motion was supported by a Statement of Charges prepared by the Illinois attorney discipline agency. That Statement of Charges included multiple allegations of neglect (SCR 20:1.3); failure to communicate with clients (SCR 20:1.4(a) and (b)); incompetence (SCR 20:1.1); failure to refund unearned fees(SCR 20:1.16(d)); failure to promptly deliver property to a client to which the client was entitled (SCR 20:1.15(b)); failure to deposit client and third party funds into a separate identifiable account (SCR 20:1.15(a)); willful failure to pay his law school student loan (a rule violation in Illinois); and aiding in the unauthorized practice of law (SCR 20:5.5(b)).

The violation of SCR 20:5.5(b) stemmed from Gehl's professional relationships with an Illinois divorce association and with Robert Stuligross, a Wisconsin attorney who was not licensed to practice in Illinois. In May 1994, as the divorce association's corporate counsel, Gehl drafted a contract between the association and Stuligross whereby Stuligross would receive a monthly retainer fee to represent members of the association in Illinois divorce proceedings. Gehl was aware that Stuligross was handling at least 40 divorces in Cook County, and acted as the "sponsoring attorney" in numerous petitions by Stuligross for admission to practice on a pro hac vice basis. In June 1993, when Stuligross ceased representing members of the divorce association, Gehl assumed the handling of those cases. However, Gehl thereafter employed Stuligross as a "paralegal" to draft pleadings and correspondence, to do research and to handle communications with the association's clients. Gehl also had Stuligross make court appearances on behalf of some of those clients. As a result of this conduct, including the abuse of the Illinois pro hac vice rule, Gehl was found to have assisted a person who was not a member of the bar in performing an activity constituting the unauthorized practice of law.

In addition, Gehl failed to cooperate with a BAPR investigation relating to Stuligross's alleged unauthorized practice of law in Illinois (SCR 21.03(4)). (In March 1997, Stuligross's law license was suspended for two years as discipline for misconduct that included representing clients in Illinois divorce proceedings when he was not licensed in that jurisdiction. See, 70 Wis. Law. 52 (May 1997).)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also ordered Gehl to pay the costs of the disciplinary proceeding and conditioned his reinstatement in Wisconsin upon his establishing that he has been reinstated in Illinois.

Disciplinary proceeding against Paul M. Goetz

On Nov. 7, 1997, the Wisconsin Supreme Court publicly reprimanded Paul M. Goetz, 50, Wausau.

In violation of SCR 20:8.4(c), Goetz used a fictitious name of a purported resident of Merrill in signing a letter that was critical of the then-district attorney of Lincoln County. Goetz submitted the letter to a newspaper for publication. Goetz later defeated the sitting district attorney in an election for that post.

Prior to his electoral defeat, Goetz's predecessor as district attorney had requested the Lincoln County sheriff's department to initiate an investigation of three letters he received, which the FBI later determined to have originated from a typewriter in Goetz's office. Subsequent to his electoral loss and after the sheriff decided not to forward the matter for prosecution, Goetz's predecessor made two public records requests for copies of the sheriff's file materials in the matter. A local newspaper made a similar request. Goetz, who knew that he was the subject of the investigation to which the records related, violated SCR 20:1.7(b) by attempting to persuade the county corporation counsel to advise the sheriff not to release the records that his predecessor and the newspaper had requested.

BAPR referred the allegations of misconduct to a district professional responsibility committee for investigation. Goetz failed to cooperate with the investigation, in violation of SCR 21.03(4) and 22.07(3), by refusing to answer the committee's questions of whether Goetz had any role in authoring, publishing or mailing the three letters giving rise to his predecessor's request for a sheriff's investigation.

Goetz previously received a private reprimand, to which he consented in March 1993.

Public reprimand of Mary Kay Matthias

BAPR publicly reprimanded Mary K. Matthias on Nov. 26, 1997, because she practiced law while her license was administratively suspended, contrary to SCR 20:5.5(a). Matthias's law license was administratively suspended on Nov. 5, 1992, because she had not paid dues, assessments and fees to the State Bar of Wisconsin. In addition, her license was administratively suspended on June 1, 1993, because she had not met continuing legal education (CLE) reporting requirements. Since at least 1992, Matthias's employment duties included providing legal advice regarding existing and proposed laws. She continued in this employment until Jan. 8, 1997. By Jan. 19, 1997, she had paid the required dues and had satisfied all CLE reporting requirements, so her license was restored to good standing. She then resumed her employment. BAPR concluded that Matthias's activities constituted the unauthorized practice of law.

Disciplinary proceeding against Herbert L. Usow

The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended the law license of Herbert L. Usow, 73, Milwaukee, for six months, effective Jan. 12, 1998. Usow's suspension was based upon misconduct during the representation of a client in a divorce matter.

The client, who was involuntarily committed to a mental health unit when she retained Usow in June 1994, paid Usow a retainer of $2,500. Usow agreed to provide approximately 16.5 hours of legal services for the retainer and to thereafter bill his time at $150 per hour. The client was released from the mental health unit shortly after retaining Usow but continued to have difficulty functioning and was again involuntarily committed in August 1994. The representation continued throughout the summer of 1994. During that time, Usow received additional funds of approximately $1,517 on behalf of the client, including dividend checks and support payments from her husband. Some of the funds were deposited into Usow's trust account, while others were deposited into his business account. The court found that Usow violated SCR 20:1.15(b) by failing to notify his client in writing of his receipt of these funds. In addition, the court found that Usow violated SCR 20:1.15(a), by failing to properly deposit the client's funds in his trust account.

In early October 1994, the client, whose mental condition had improved, determined that she no longer wanted a divorce and conveyed this to Usow. The following day, Usow withdrew the $719.24 of the client's funds that remained in his trust account. While Usow had obtained his client's consent for this withdrawal, Usow had prepared no itemized billings up to that point, nor had he provided the client with an accounting of the funds received on her behalf so as to accurately inform her of the amount of fees earned as of the date of his withdrawal of her funds.

In November 1994 Usow sent the client a bill for $4,500 with no itemization or credit for the funds previously received. After several unsuccessful attempts by the client and her husband to obtain an accounting from Usow, the client requested fee arbitration. In his answer filed in that proceeding, Usow claimed $7,850 as fees and stated that he had only received $350 from the client. Appended to his answer was Usow's first accounting purportedly describing services rendered.

The arbitration panel cut Usow's fee from $7,850 to $3,525. The panel believed that Usow spent more than the 23.5 hours allowed, but his lack of accurate records made it impossible to determine the actual amount. The net result of the arbitration was that Usow owed the client approximately $491. Usow sent the client that amount in the form of a check drawn on his trust account. However, Usow had no funds on deposit in his trust account for the client. Therefore, by issuing a payment to the client from his trust account when there were no funds for that client on deposit in the account, Usow violated SCR 20:1.15(a).

The court also found that the accounting contained duplicative, speculative and inflated charges, due primarily to carelessness and neglect and to Usow's failure to adequately supervise his office staff. The court found that Usow engaged in misrepresentation as to the amount and date of legal services he rendered, in violation of SCR 20:8.4(c), by causing that accounting to be sent to his client and to the fee arbitration panel. Finally, in the disciplinary investigation, Usow claimed that he had always sent the client written itemizations of the services rendered. He subsequently acknowledged that, with the exception of the accounting in which he set forth his notes of the representation, he never provided the client written itemization of services he claimed to have rendered. The court found that statement to be a false statement of material fact in a disclosure during the board investigation, in violation of SCR 22.07(2).

The court ordered Usow's law license suspended for six months based upon the serious nature of the misconduct, including the potential it created for financial harm to the client. Further, the court considered that Usow had been suspended for 90 days twice previously for similar misconduct, including misrepresentations and mishandling of client funds to be held in trust.

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