Justices reprimand attorney, order him to pay sanctions judgment

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has publicly reprimanded an Iowa attorney and ordered him to pay a court judgement.

The discipline stems from a complaint filed last April by the Office of Lawyer Regulation alleging three counts of misconduct involving two clients who had hired David Lemanski to represent them in Wisconsin family cases.

The allegations included that Lemanski caused a former client to miss a deposition and that Lemanski failed to pay to the opposing counsel sanctions that were imposed for Lemanski’s missing discovery and deposition deadlines. Lemanski was also alleged to have failed to cooperate with the OLR’s investigation into the matter.

The OLR, in its complaint, had asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to publicly reprimand Lemanski and gave him 120 days to pay the $1,471.50 in sanctions to the opposing counsel.

When Lemanski later answered the OLR’s complaint, he admitted to the misconduct but disagreed that the appropriate discipline was a public reprimand. He contended that a private reprimand would instead be sufficient.

A referee, however, agreed with the OLR and recommended that the justices publicly reprimand Lemanski.

Justices sided with both the OLR and the referee in a per curiam decision, noting that Lemanski had committed misconduct in two separate representations, had failed to obey a court order to pay sanctions and had already been disciplined once in 2015 for misconduct stemming from failing to cooperate with attorney-regulation officials in Iowa.

“We conclude that a private reprimand in such circumstances would not sufficiently impress upon Attorney Lemanski the seriousness of his misconduct and the need for him to conform his conduct in the future to the Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys,” according to the decision.

However, the justices did not take the referee’s recommendation that Lemanski be given 120 days to pay the sanctions judgment to opposing counsel. The court instead ordered him to pay opposing counsel within 60 days. Follow @erikastrebel