High court suspends Whitefish Bay attorney’s license

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended a Whitefish Bay lawyer’s license for nine months for mishandling client money, among other things.

The disciplinary action stems from an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed in January alleging Matthew Marx, who had been licensed to practice in Wisconsin since 1996, had committed 22 counts of misconduct. He is alleged in part of collecting money from clients who had hired him to represent them in divorce cases and then failing to respond to them.

In one case, Marx failed to return money to a client after that client had fired him. The OLR also alleged that he broke trust-account rules, paying a client’s court fees from his trust account although there was no money being held in trust for that client in the account. He also withdrew more than $2,000 from the account to pay rent, business loans and expenses at a country club.

The complaint also alleged that Marx continued to file documents in federal court, although his license had been suspended since March 2014. That suspension was the result of his failing to co-operate with the OLR’s investigation into the allegations in the complaint.

The OLR had asked the justices to suspend Marx’s license for nine months. He reached a stipulation with the OLR, admitting to the misconduct detailed in the complaint and agreeing to the disciplinary action the OLR had asked for and to the payment of restitution.

The justices last week chose to adopt the terms of the stipulation, ordering Marx’s license to be suspended for nine months and ordering him to pay restitution, including $994.50 to one client and $1,568 to another.