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High court reinstates northern Wisconsin attorney’s license

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 18, 2017//

High court reinstates northern Wisconsin attorney’s license

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 18, 2017//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has reinstated the license of a northern Wisconsin attorney who was suspended last year for using trust-account money to pay for personal expenses.

The high court suspended Thomas Mulligan’s license in October 2015 for using more than $9,000 of his clients’ money held in his trust account to pay for personal expenses between 2007 and 2011.

The justices suspended Mulligan’s license for nine months. He petitioned the justices to reinstate his license in July last year, and a hearing on the matter was held in February. The Office of Lawyer Regulation stated that it did not oppose Mulligan’s reinstatement but recommended that the court impose certain conditions on his reinstatement.

A referee recommended that Mulligan’s license be reinstated on the condition that his trust account be monitored by the OLR, noting that Mulligan’s reinstatement would be beneficial to the public interest because he would be practicing in a rural, under-served area of the state.

The court on Thursday reinstated Mulligan’s license on the condition that the OLR monitor his trust account for three years and that Mulligan continue to make payments toward the cost of his disciplinary and reinstatement proceedings.

The court noted that Mulligan still had not paid more than $17,000 worth of costs related to his disciplinary hearing but that he had made arrangements with the OLR for a payment plan. The court also ordered Mulligan on Thursday to pay more than $2,000, which is the cost of the reinstatement proceeding.

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