State Supreme Court suspends attorney’s license

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended the law license of Waunakee attorney Ron Niesen for nine months for professional misconduct and abandonment of his practice.

The sanction stemmed from Niesen’s failure to perform estate planning services for a client in 2009 after taking $900 in compensation.

Niesen also failed to inform the client that at the time, his license was suspended due to a delinquency in Continuing Legal Education credits.

According to the order issued Friday by the court, six months after he was hired to transfer property titles for a woman whose husband had died, Niesen abandoned his law practice.

He failed to inform the woman or return the $900 she paid him for the estate planning work, according to the order.

On July 28, 2009, a judge in Dane County appointed an attorney to protect and retrieve sensitive files at Niesen’s law office.

According to the order, the appointed attorney found files “abandoned and in disarray, no computers and piles of unanswered mail and trust account information.”

Niesen replied to an Office of Lawyer Regulation inquiry in August 2009 that he was “undergoing intense alcohol rehab” and that he was basically destitute, according to the order.

Niesen was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 1992 and previously received a private reprimand for violating a domestic harassment injunction.

In addition to the nine-month suspension issued by the court, Niesen was ordered to repay the $900 owed to the client within 60 days.