Grafton business attorney faces suspension

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A Grafton business attorney who allegedly admitted to forging the signature of his then-wife to obtain money from her trust account is facing a six-month suspension of his law license.

Shawn Rice took more than $600,000 from the trust account of Liesl Testwuide, according to a complaint filed Oct. 2 by the Office of Lawyer Regulation. The trust was set up in 1992, and Rice and Testwuide married in 1996; their divorce was finalized in 2011.

According to the complaint, Testwuide filed a grievance with the OLR, alleging that Rice forged her signature and another co-trustee on documents to obtain the money.

Around the same time, Rice notified the OLR that he had “violated the rules of professional responsibility by executing checks in other documents in my role as de facto Trustee without a formal power of attorney document,” according to the complaint. He told the OLR that he did this from 1998 to 2010 on “letters, checks, emails, faxes, tax returns and other documents.”

The OLR is asking the Supreme Court for a six-month suspension. If the court imposes that sanction, Rice would have to petition to get his law license reinstated.

Rice graduated from Marquette University Law School in 1993. According to his website, he previously worked at Davis & Kuelthau SC and Godfrey & Kahn SC.

His law license is listed as in good standing. He did not immediately return a message left at his office Friday.

Testwuide filed a lawsuit against Rice and Davis & Kuelthau in November 2012, alleging fraud, conversion and legal malpractice. The judge in the case barred any transactions that occurred prior to Nov. 21, 2005, since the statute of limitations had run out. The rest of the claims were settled in May 2013.

According to the OLR’s complaint, “Rice and Testwuide presented different positions, assertions, perspectives and opinions regarding Rice’s forgeries, leading to different conclusions regarding whether or not Rice’s conduct was explicitly or implicitly approved by Testwuide.”

Rice was publicly reprimanded in 2007 for his misconduct in a commercial real estate transaction. Follow @eheisigWLJ