Attorney faces discipline for misconduct in Arizona

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An attorney is in danger of seeing his Wisconsin law license suspended in response to the suspension of his Arizona license.

According to a complaint filed on Tuesday by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, Arizona attorney Stephen Manion failed to report that his Arizona license had been suspended in March over two counts of misconduct involving a client who was an inmate.

The misconduct included Manion’s allowing his client to communicate from jail by using an intermediary who Manion knew had been convicted of fraud. The actions resulted in his client losing money, according to the complaint.

Also, Manion helped another inmate client collect a share of an inheritance by circumventing prison rules, breaking various trust-account rules in the process and causing that client also to lose money.

In response to the misconduct, the Arizona Supreme Court suspended Manion’s license for 6 months and one day.

The OLR’s complaint asked that the Wisconsin Supreme Court impose reciprocal discipline on Manion.

Manion, who practices in Laveen, Ariz., has requested that his license to practice law be resigned, according to the State Bar of Wisconsin website. He was licensed to practice law in Wisconsin in 1998, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court has not previously disciplined him, according to the OLR website.

However, Manion’s troubles did not start in Arizona. When Manion applied for admission in 1994, the Board of Bar Examiners declined to let him practice law in the state. As reason for its decision, the board cited his history of cocaine, heroin and alcohol abuse while he was working as corporate counsel and a manager for a company in Buffalo, N.Y., and while he was in private practice.

Manion appealed the decision. In 1995, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied his application for the same reasons. At the same time, the justices told him he could try for admission again if he spent two years abstaining from alcohol or drugs, submitted to random monthly drug tests and attended treatment programs.

Manion initially landed in Wisconsin in part as an attempt to control his substance abuse, according to court documents. While working for Delaware North Companies from 1983 to 1990, he became addicted to drugs and alcohol, causing him to ask for a transfer to Wisconsin.

In November 1990, he started working as an operations manager at Fox Valley Greyhound Park in Kaukauna, but his alcohol addiction continued. He was arrested in 1991 for drunken driving and later checked himself into a rehabilitation program at Fox Valley Hospital in Green Bay, according to court documents.

When the park shut down after going bankrupt in 1993, Manion returned to New York and worked in private practice but started using cocaine again and attempted to get treatment, returning to Green Bay for treatment in 1994. Around that time, he applied for permission to take the Wisconsin bar exam, passed and petitioned for admission. Follow @erikastrebel