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Referee: Illinois lawyer tried to evade Wisconsin investigators, too

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//March 10, 2017//

Referee: Illinois lawyer tried to evade Wisconsin investigators, too

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//March 10, 2017//

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A referee is recommending that a lawyer disbarred in Illinois for using client money to pay personal expenses should also be disciplined in Wisconsin.

According to a complaint filed last year by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, John Peiss failed to report to the OLR that he had been disbarred by the Illinois Supreme Court in September 2015.

He had been disbarred for taking on a debt-collection case and spending a client’s money on personal and business expenses as well as hiding in Madison to evade the authorities investigating the misconduct.

The OLR had asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to impose reciprocal discipline on Peiss, who argued that he had been denied due process by the Illinois Supreme Court.

However, the referee appointed in the case, Reserve Judge John Murphy, disagreed in a referee’s report filed Dec. 13 and recommended that the high court impose reciprocal discipline on Peiss.

“The procedure of answering a complaint is simple and straight-forward and is known to every person who has ever taken civil procedure in law school,” Murphy wrote. “The Respondent seems to argue, however, that the Illinois authorities should have guessed that he wished to contest the charges against him and overlook the fact that he failed to answer the charges against him in the prescribed way.”

Murphy also noted that any missteps were “the direct result of the Respondent’s misbehavior.”

He pointed out that Peiss also gave Wisconsin investigators a similar run-around when the OLR had attempted to serve its complaint.

The next step in the process is for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide whether to adopt Murphy’s recommendation.

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