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Madison lawyer faces 2-year suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//March 16, 2015//

Madison lawyer faces 2-year suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//March 16, 2015//

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A Madison lawyer faces a two-year suspension of her license to practice law.

Jenny Armstrong was graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1979. According to the State Bar website, her license is in good standing. She has not been disciplined previously.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a complaint March 9 asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend Armstrong’s license and alleging Armstrong had committed nine counts of misconduct, including improperly billing a client, not disclosing conflicts of interest to that client and inaccurately preparing and filing that client’s tax returns.

A message left for Armstrong was not returned Monday.

The allegations in the complaint stem from Armstrong’s dealings with Betty Ross-Thomson, who was Armstrong’s client from the 1980s to mid-October 2005, according to the complaint.

The first count stems from an insurance policy Armstrong sold to Ross-Thomson in June 2000. According to the OLR, Armstrong, who was also a licensed real-estate broker and insurance agent at the time, sold Thomson a deferred annuity policy. That type of policy, according to the OLR, has been the subject of lawsuits in Minnesota, and Ross-Thomson received part of the class-action settlement in one of those cases. The transaction, according to the OLR, was “not fair or reasonable to the client.”  Also, the OLR alleges Armstrong received a commission on the policy without Ross-Thomson’s written consent to waive the conflict of interest or an indication that the client had been given the opportunity to consult a different lawyer.

The second count of misconduct involved a 2005 contract Armstrong wrote listing a duplex in Madison owned by Ross-Thomson, according to the complaint. Armstrong would get a 7 percent commission on the sale. Again, according to the OLR, Armstrong contracted with Ross-Thomson – this time as her real estate agent while acting as her lawyer – without written consent to waive the conflict of interest.

Counts three and four involve Ross-Thomson and her husband’s 2000 tax return, which Armstrong prepared and filed. The IRS notified Ross-Thomson that she and her husband owed $2,717 more. The OLR alleges the return contained inaccurate information and that Armstrong either knew about the inaccuracies or reasonably could have obtained correct information.  Armstrong also overcharged Ross-Thomson, according to the OLR,  to reduce the tax deficiency, charging $4,118.95 to rectify the matter while charging $3,430.88 to prepare the tax return.

Counts five alleges Armstrong charged Ross-Thomson a flat fee of $500 a month, during which she only spent about 15 minutes on legal work. The rest of the time billed was spent on clerical activities.

Count six comes from billing on Ross-Thomson’s duplex from Sept. 1, 2004, to Nov. 1, 2005. The OLR alleges the billing was for non-professional work, although Armstrong charged her professional rate of $250 an hour and  her paraprofessional rate of $150 an hour.

The three other counts include instances in which Armstrong had improperly billed Ross-Thomson, including charging $3,626  for canceling auto insurance on a vehicle and transferring the vehicle’s title, charging $385 to cancel an account with AOL Inc., and charging $562.50 for a check Ross-Thomson had written but Armstrong had failed to cash within a certain length of time.

In addition to the two-year suspension of Armstrong’s license, the OLR is asking that the Wisconsin Supreme Court order her to pay $60,899.81 in restitution to Ross-Thomson.

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