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Referee: Madison lawyer should pay more than $12K for proceeding

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 14, 2017//

Referee: Madison lawyer should pay more than $12K for proceeding

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 14, 2017//

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A referee is recommending that a Madison lawyer pay more than $12,000 for his disciplinary proceeding.

The recommendation comes after referee John Murphy found that Michael Bauer broke 19 ethics rules and should be suspended for one year.

The recommendations stem from a complaint filed more than a year ago by the Office of Lawyer Regulation alleging that Bauer had mishandled more than $700,000 that he should have been holding in trust for clients. The complaint had detailed 28 charges of misconduct and sought a three-year license suspension.

The OLR and Bauer reached a stipulation in May in which Bauer admitted to 14 counts of misconduct, and the OLR agreed to dismiss seven charges. Bauer contested seven of the remaining charges, contending that the facts did not support the charges.

In a report filed on Aug. 8, Murphy accepted the stipulation and rejected Bauer’s arguments but found that Bauer had committed only five of those seven contested charges.

In a second report filed last month, Murphy recommended that Bauer’s license be suspended for one year and that he pay the full cost of the proceeding, calling the two-year suspension the OLR had sought excessive given that he had no previous discipline. Bauer recently filed an appeal of Murphy’s recommendation.

The OLR filed a statement Nov. 2 showing that the agency’s costs in prosecuting the matter included $10,022.54 in counsel fees and disbursements and 2,837.88 in referee fees and disbursements, for a total of $12,860.32. It also recommended Bauer pay that amount.

Murphy signed off on those figures in a Nov. 9 court filing

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will review Murphy’s recommendations and issue a final decision in the matter.

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