Rhinelander attorney suspended for mishandling client money

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A Rhinelander attorney who admitted to mishandling thousands of dollars while he was a court-appointed guardian has been suspended from practicing law for 18 months.

Richard Voss, of Voss Law Office, was appointed to be J.K.’s guardian in 1987, according to the per curiam decision released Friday. J.K. had a history of mental illness, complicated by a history of alcohol abuse and diabetes, and in 1990 moved to a Veterans Administration-run facility.

Between 1990 and when J.K. died in 2008, Voss received J.K.’s social security checks, and would disburse money for J.K. to use. However, Voss did not disburse all of the social security payments, yet told the court multiple times that he had less than $1,000 in the account.

READ OUR RELATED CASE DIGEST

Voss was subsequently removed as J.K.’s guardian, and it was later determined that Voss had used $46,103.88 of J.K.’s money to pay for other client and business expenses. He later admitted that he would often put client money in a general account and then pay money out J.K.’s trust account.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation charged Voss with 11 counts of misconduct. He pleaded no contest to all of them.

The OLR had requested Voss have his license revoked, though a referee recommended a one-year suspension. The court, though, imposed an 18-month suspension.

The court also ordered Voss to pay $2,077.18 to J.K.’s estate and the cost of the disciplinary proceeding, which was $4,625.48 as of April. It also said Voss must “be required to demonstrate that he has in place a proper trust account consistent with supreme court rules” before his license is reinstated.

Voss graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1976. He did not immediately return a phone call Friday.

The opinion goes into details of how Voss mismanaged his money. According to the opinion his money and that of his brother, attorney Frederick Voss, would be put into the same account.

The court noted that the OLR had tried to compare Voss’ case to those of Edwin Conmey and Charles Krombach. According to the justices, though, Conmey and Krombach stole money for themselves, and it didn’t appear that Voss did that.

“Revocation of an attorney’s license to practice law is the most severe sanction this court can impose, and is reserved for the most egregious cases,” according to the decision. While Attorney Voss’s misconduct is serious, we do not agree that it rises to the level of warranting revocation.”

Voss was privately reprimanded in 2004 and 2006. Follow @eheisigWLJ