Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Milwaukee lawyer faces 5-month suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//January 10, 2017//

Milwaukee lawyer faces 5-month suspension

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//January 10, 2017//

Listen to this article

A Milwaukee criminal-defense lawyer is faced with another license suspension less than a year after the state’s highest court banned him from practicing law for 90 days.

According to an Office of Lawyer Regulation complaint filed Dec. 29, the Milwaukee-based criminal-defense attorney Peter Kovac is alleged to have broken several rules of professional conduct while representing three clients in criminal matters.

In one case, Kovac represented a Milwaukee man who was convicted of two felony counts of kidnapping and second-degree sexual assault. Kovac filed a notice of intent to pursue post-conviction relief in July 2014 but never took action and ignored the client’s requests for information on the statute of the appeal, according to the complaint.

When a public defender took over the case in 2015, Kovac failed to respond to both the public defender and the client’s requests for the file to be turned over. Kovac told the OLR in April last year that he would give up the file but has not done so, according to the OLR.

In another case, Kovac was hired to represent a Milwaukee man in an appeal of his 20-year sentence for a sexual-assault conviction. According to the OLR, the man paid Kovac $5,000, and Kovac filed a notice that he would seek a reduction in the man’s sentence. However, he failed to file a motion or appeal and failed to respond to the OLR’s inquiries into the matter, according to the complaint.

The OLR’s complaint also alleges that Kovac failed to respond to a client’s request for transcripts from an appeal.

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

Kovac, reached Friday, said he is distressed by the complaint because he had received a letter assuring him it would not be filed if he had contacted the OLR by Dec. 30. Kovac said he called the OLR on Dec. 30.

“I’m upset because it shouldn’t have been public,” he said. “Hopefully justice will prevail in the end.”

He also noted that the delays noted in the complaint were the result of his medical troubles.

“They are not going to get the sanctions they want because they are not considering all the circumstances,” he said.

Kovac, who earned his degree from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, has been licensed to practice in Wisconsin since 1973.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court publicly reprimanded him in 2008 and 2012. His license was suspended for 90 days in July last year for misconduct involving clients he had represented in federal and state criminal proceedings.

Polls

Should Steven Avery be granted a new evidentiary hearing?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Legal News

See All Legal News

WLJ People

Sea all WLJ People

Opinion Digests