High court suspends attorney’s license over misconduct in Minnesota

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended an attorney’s license for 60 days over misconduct he committed in Minnesota.

Tuesday’s discipline stems from an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed Feb. 11 alleging that Mark Kurzman, a lawyer out of Minneapolis, failed to notify the Wisconsin OLR that the Minnesota Supreme Court had suspended his license in November. Kurzman had been licensed in Minnesota since 1972. The court reinstated his license to practice on Feb. 18.

The Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision stemmed from misconduct it found that Kurzman had committed while his license was already on probation for violations of trust-account rules. Among the accusations were that he had asked a question, without any good reason, essentially accusing a witness of molesting boys, taken months to provide a copy of a client’s file, failed to properly submit documents to a court as ordered and provided client files to another client.

Kurzman reached a stipulation with the OLR in March, agreeing to the reciprocal discipline and agreeing that the allegations in the complaint were accurate and true. As a result, no referee or additional hearings were needed. For that reason, the court on Tuesday did not order Kurzman to pay costs.

The OLR had asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend Kurzman’s license for 60 days, and the justices on Tuesday agreed that the suggested discipline was appropriate.

Tuesday’s discipline is not the first time the Wisconsin Supreme Court has disciplined Kurzman for out-of-state misconduct. The court also publicly reprimanded him in 2012 as reciprocal action for trust-account violations that the Minnesota Supreme Court disciplined him for in 2010.

Kurzman graduated from the New York University School of Law and has been licensed to practice in Wisconsin since 2003. Follow @erikastrebel