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High court revokes Mass. lawyer’s Wisconsin license

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//December 15, 2017//

High court revokes Mass. lawyer’s Wisconsin license

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//December 15, 2017//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has revoked the license of a Massachusetts attorney whose license was indefinitely suspended in his home state earlier this year.

Friday’s discipline stems from an Office of Lawyer Regulation filed in March charging Ronald Brandt of Winchester, Mass., with failing to notify lawyer regulators in Wisconsin that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts had indefinitely suspended his license there on Jan. 30.

The Massachusetts misconduct stemmed from three client matters Brandt handled, as well as his interaction with that state’s lawyer-regulation investigators. The misconduct included that he accepted retainer fees but never did any work in the matter, failed to respond to client phone calls and emails, failed to respond to discovery requests and failed to tell a client that she needed to give a deposition.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts indefinitely suspended Brandt’s license Jan. 30.

The OLR had sought reciprocal discipline for the Massachusetts misconduct and asked that the Wisconsin Supreme Court revoke Brandt’s Wisconsin license. Revocation is considered a permanent suspension of a lawyer’s license, though the lawyer may, after five years apply for reinstatement.

Brandt never responded to the complaint.

In a per curiam decision Friday, the justices revoked Brandt’s license, citing it as discipline most similar to Massachusetts’ indefinite license suspension.

The court also imposed no costs, noting that no referee had been appointed to oversee the matter and no disciplinary hearing took place. The revocation took effect Friday.

Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote a concurring opinion noting that the Supreme Court Rules require the court to impose “identical discipline” but in Brandt’s case, the court imposed revocation, which the court in its decision acknowledged was similar, but not identical, to the indefinite license suspension the Massachusetts court doled out.

She wrote to suggest that the Office of Lawyer Regulation Procedure Review Committee propose a revision to the rules involving reciprocal discipline.

This is not Brandt’s first tangle with the OLR. He was publicly reprimanded in 2011 after the Massachusetts court publicly reprimanded him for failing to a tell a client he would not be pursuing the client’s medical malpractice case, failing to advise that client of that decision failing to return the file to the client and failing to end the representation in a way that protected the client’s interest.

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