Former chief counsel for Doyle faces suspension.

Byline: Erika Strebel, erika.strebel@wislawjournal.com

A Dane County attorney who once worked for Gov. Jim Doyle's administration is faced with a 90-day suspension of his law license.

According to an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed on Dec. 20, Stanley Davis, of The Davis Group and former chief legal counsel and deputy chief of staff under Doyle, committed 20 counts of misconduct while representing five clients in a variety of civil cases.

In Davis' dealings with clients, the OLR alleges various violations of the same ethics rules, including failing to cooperate with the OLR's investigations of grievances filed against him by clients, failing to diligently represent clients, failing to tell clients and the courts that his license had been suspended and working on clients' cases although his license had been suspended.

For example, five allegations of misconduct stemmed from Davis' dealings with a client who had hired Davis in 2013 to represent him in an employment dispute with Milwaukee Public Schools. Davis was already representing him in a separate family matter.

According to the OLR, Davis failed to either advance the employment matter or to decide in a timely fashion whether the client's claims had merit. The OLR also alleges that Davis failed to keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the employment matter and failed to take proper steps in terminating his representation of the client, including refunding part of the $5,000 advanced fee the client had paid.

The complaint also states that Davis had failed to respond to the OLR when it was...