High court slaps Eau Claire attorney with 6-month suspension

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended an Eau Claire attorney’s license for six months for leading two clients to believe he was pursuing cases that in fact had been dismissed or never filed in the first place.

Friday’s discipline stems from an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed in 2014, alleging William Spangler had committed four counts of misconduct while representing a plaintiff in a lawsuit over the ownership of a four-unit condominium complex.

According to the complaint, Spangler failed to consult his client before agreeing to have the case dismissed, failed to adequately inform the client about the case and drew up falsified documents to support lies to the client. He continued to tell the client that he had won a judgement in the case, going so far as to draw up falsified documents to support his lie.

As a result, the client asked Spangler to pursue payment from the judgement by suing the defendant’s insurance company. Spangler prepared a complaint and other documents for the lawsuit but never filed them.

He also paid the client $45,000 of his own money, representing it as money coming from the fake judgement. The client eventually fired Spangler in 2011 after consulting with other lawyers.

The OLR’s complaint had asked the justices to suspend Spangler’s license for 60 days. However, just after the OLR and Spangler had reached a stipulation, Spangler’s former law firm — Weld, Riley Prenn & Rici in Eau Claire — submitted documents showing that additional misconduct had occurred at the same time as the misconduct detailed in the OLR’s complaint.

According to the new stipulation reached by the OLR and Spangler, Spangler had led a client to believe that his lawsuit over a business dispute had been in litigation for five years. Once again, he had fabricated documents to support his lies.

When Spangler left the firm, in 2011, he continued representing the client. Spangler would pay the client $75,000 of what said was a settlement. In fact, the money was Spangler’s own. He never filed a lawsuit.

The OLR and Spangler agreed that at 60-day suspension was adequate punishment for the misconduct; an independent referee concurred.

Among the mitigating factors Spangler cited in his own defense were his lack of disciplinary history, his remorse for what he had done and his payment of restitution to clients.

However, the high court on Friday found that the proposed discipline was inadequate and instead suspended Spangler’s license for six months.

“Attorney Spangler’s conduct in creating a series of false documents for the sole purpose of misleading his clients into believing that they had lawsuits pending was an affirmative act of deception and a betrayal of the trust his clients placed in him,” according to the court’s decision Friday.

The court also ordered Spangler to cover the cost of the disciplinary proceeding, which came to $6,678.43. Follow @erikastrebel