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Milwaukee attorney faces 18-month suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//October 12, 2016//

Milwaukee attorney faces 18-month suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//October 12, 2016//

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A Milwaukee attorney faces a year-and-a-half suspension over alleged misconduct involving his handling of the estate of a deceased Brookfield real estate developer and builder.

According to a complaint filed Sept. 30 by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, Thad Jelinske, the senior partner at the Milwaukee firm Mawicke & Goisman, committed 23 counts of misconduct involving his handling of his long-time client Robert McCloud’s estate. McCloud had been a client of the firm for 20 years.

McCloud created a new trust and will in July 2011 and died in August 2011. McCloud’s will named Jelinske as the estate’s personal representative and trustee.

McCloud had been suffering from liver failure before he died, and neglected both his personal and financial affairs. Park Bank was his largest creditor and could have had valid claims to most of McCloud’s estate. The bank later sued Jelinske and his firm.

According to the 29-page complaint, Jelinske, head of Mawicke & Goisman’s commercial-litigation department, had little experience in probate and was removed in 2015 as a representative of the estate.

Among the 22 counts of misconduct, the OLR alleges that Jelinski should have known that the estate was insolvent because Park Bank had a significant claim against it.

Nevertheless, Jelinske wrote various checks from the estate’s account between September 2011 and February 2012 for personal expenses or expenses of the estate. Those expenses included $208.10 to Allen Edmonds, a high-end shoe store; $357.34 to Shoe Healer, a local shoe-repair shop; $1,581.89 to Tom James, a men’s store; and $2,920.78 to pay his wife’s American Express credit-card bill, according to the complaint.

Later, Jelinske lied in court or in deposition about some of those expenses, according to the OLR.

The OLR also alleges that when one of McCloud’s insurance companies issued a life insurance policy check of $573.61, Jelinske deposited the check into the estate account and then later paid himself that amount in cash and failed to record it in the estate’s checkbook register.

Jelinske later deposited another insurance-policy check, this time for $1,565 into his bank account and used it for his own expenses, according to the complaint.

The complaint also alleges that Jelinski billed the estate for both personal representative fees and for his attorney’s fees, which is against state law, and billed unreasonable fees to the estate. Jelinske sought nearly $200,000 in legal fees from the estate for both his services and his firm’s.

The OLR is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend Jelinske’s license for 18 months.

Jelinske also faces three misdemeanor charges of theft in Waukesha County stemming from some of the misconduct alleged in the OLR’s complaint.

Jelinske, who has worked for Mawicke & Goisman for nearly 27 years, earned his law degree from Drake University Law School and was admitted to practice in Wisconsin in 1986. His license is in good standing, according to the State Bar of Wisconsin and OLR websites. The Supreme Court has not previously disciplined him.

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