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Justices revoke Milwaukee lawyer’s license after numerous rule violations

By: Eric Heisig//December 10, 2013//

Justices revoke Milwaukee lawyer’s license after numerous rule violations

By: Eric Heisig//December 10, 2013//

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The state Supreme Court revoked a Milwaukee attorney’s license Tuesday for repeatedly mishandling cases in state and federal courts.

Sean Cooper, who was admitted to the State Bar in 2009, frequently missed deadlines and court appearances while also failing to respond to client requests, according to the court’s opinion. In one case, the opinion reads, he even listed the wrong debtor and address on a debt consolidation plan case.

The court, in its decision, upheld the decision of referee Richard Ninneman, who found that Cooper had committed a total of 81 rule violations. It also upheld Ninneman’s decision to revoke Cooper’s license, stating that “no sanction short of revocation would be sufficient to protect the public, achieve deterrence and impress upon Attorney Cooper the seriousness of his misconduct.”

In making its decision, the court acknowledged that revoking an attorney’s license is “the most severe sanction this court can impose.”

“It is reserved for the most egregious cases,” the justices wrote. “Although Attorney Cooper was not licensed to practice law until 2009, during the short time that he was a practicing attorney, he engaged in repeated misconduct in his handling of numerous client matters.”

The court also ordered Cooper to pay $3,495 in restitution, as well as more than $7,400 to pay for the costs of the OLR proceeding.

Cooper’s disciplinary problems have been several years in the making. After representing clients in the bankruptcy court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, he was barred from filing petitions there for six months in 2011 for repeated problems. In October of that year, though, he was accused of ghost writing a petition for a client, and was later fined $2,500 by the court.

In March, he sent a letter to the Office of Lawyer Regulation and the referee for his discipline case, stating that he decided to surrender his license due to “personal reasons.”

Cooper could not immediately be reached for comment.

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