Bar leaders in Wisconsin debate petition for permanent license revocation.

Byline: Jack Zemlicka

Currently, the harshest sanction that can be imposed on an attorney in Wisconsin is a five-year suspension, with the possibility of reinstatement.

But some say the Supreme Court rules don't go far enough and want to establish a procedure for permanent revocation.

The State Bar's Professional Ethics Committee and the Office of Lawyer Regulation's (OLR) Board of Administrative Oversight jointly have filed a petition to amend SCR 21.16 to give the Supreme Court the power to take away an attorney's license for good.

The motivation for the proposed rule change is the presence of a small group of lawyers in the state who have a history of offenses and repeatedly damage the reputation of lawyers, said Mark A. Peterson, a board member of OLR's Administrative Oversight Committee.

Having been involved in the system for 19 years and involved in a lot of petitions for reinstatement, I can tell you [that] maybe four-to-six times ... I might have considered this, said Peterson during his presentation of the petition to the State Bar's Board of Governors on December 4.

Five-year sanctions are relatively rare, with only 227 suspensions in the last 30 years, according to OLR Director Keith L. Sellen. After a five-year suspension, an attorney can petition the Supreme Court for reinstatement.

Of the 227 attorneys receiving long-term suspensions, 32 have applied for reinstatement and 17 have been had those applications granted. According to Sellen's records, only two attorneys went on to re-offend.

Opposition expressed

Given the disciplinary tools already available, Gov. Nathaniel Cade, Jr. questioned the need for the amendment.

He suggested that in the most extreme cases, the court can simply deny reinstatement if it deems the lawyer unfit to practice.

They could have ... said 'this attorney has not learned his or her lesson, come back [in] five years,' Cade said. The Supreme Court already has that tool. It's the power to say no.

But Ethics Committee Chair Dean R. Dietrich said that in his experience trying disciplinary cases, during reinstatement hearings the court focuses on the attorney's conduct since a suspension, and not what caused it.

If an attorney shows personal improvement and remorse in the wake of his or her suspension, the court often concentrates on that behavior when considering reinstatement, said Dietrich.

We can each think of a scenario where someone's conduct would warrant that person not being allowed to practice law...