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Disbarred Minnesota attorney faces discipline in Wisconsin

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//June 20, 2016//

Disbarred Minnesota attorney faces discipline in Wisconsin

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//June 20, 2016//

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An attorney who was disbarred in Minnesota now faces discipline in Wisconsin.

According to a complaint filed June 15 by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, Harvey Jones failed to report that the Minnesota Supreme Court disbarred him in 2013 for mishandling thousands of dollars worth of clients’ money, violating the state’s trust-account rules and failing to cooperate with the state’s agency charged with investigating lawyer misconduct.

Jones, who practiced in Hastings, Minn., had been admitted to practice in Minnesota since 1975. He has been admitted to practice in Wisconsin since 1984. However, since October 2011, Jones’ license to practice law in Wisconsin has been suspended for failure to pay dues and failure to certify his trust account.

Jones, according to the OLR’s complaint, failed to report to the OLR that he had been disbarred. The OLR is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to impose reciprocal discipline for the misconduct he was disbarred for in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Supreme Court disbarred Jones for three counts of misconduct, including misappropriating at least $51,142.03 that belonged to seven clients and one non-client. The misappropriations occurred at least 20 times over 20 months, from August 2009 to April 2011. One of the clients was a man whose brain had been injured in a motorcycle accident.

The court noted in its decision that Jones and the Director of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, the state’s lawyer-regulation agency, had disagreed on the number of instances of misappropriation and the amount of money at issue. The agency had alleged that there were 25 instances of misappropriation involving $73,000 but later reached a stipulation with Jones.

The court also disciplined him for violating the state’s trust-account rules and for failing to cooperate with the agency in its investigation of the misconduct.

Although Jones did not contest any of the charges, he did argue that the discipline should have been mitigated for various reasons. Still, the Minnesota justices were not persuaded.

They noted in the decision that while Jones had paid back all his clients by August 2012, he misappropriated money from other clients to do so. Jones also said he felt remorse from the first misappropriation, but the justices noted that he continued issuing checks despite the discrepancies in his account. The justices also noted that Jones only sought treatment for his depression after receiving notice of the charges that the Director of Lawyers Professional Responsibility had filed in 2011.

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