High court reinstates Milwaukee-area attorney’s license

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has reinstated the law license of a former Mequon workers’ compensation lawyer.

The justices suspended Patrick Cooper’s license for three years in 2007 over 35 counts of misconduct, alleging that he had committed various trust-account violations, told a client her wrongful-termination case was proceeding when he had never filed it, deposited $13,000 in client money into his personal account instead of a trust account and failed to cooperate with the Office of Lawyer Regulation’s investigation of his misconduct.

In 2013, the court suspended Cooper’s license again, this time for two years over 42 counts of misconduct, including his failure to communicate with his clients and explain matters to them, failure to turn over files to the clients who owned them or counsel who was succeeding him and failure to follow an order issued by an administrative-law judge.

The discipline was made to start at the end of the effective date of the previous suspension because the misconduct had happened around the same time as the conduct that had got Cooper suspended the first time.

Cooper, who graduated from Chicago-based John Marshall Law School in 1992, filed a petition for reinstatement in March. This is not Cooper’s first time asking the court to reinstate his license. His last attempt came in 2010, but the court dismissed it.

Cooper has not practiced law since 2006. In that time, he has earned a master’s degree in human resources from Marquette University and worked as a human-resources consultant, human-resources manager and a sales-training manager.

The referee in the most current proceeding, Jonathan Goodman, recommended in November that the court reinstate Cooper’s license with certain conditions.

The justices agreed on Friday with Goodman, ordering Cooper’s license be reinstated under certain conditions, which include that he be coached for two years by a practicing Wisconsin attorney who is approved and appointed by the OLR.

However, the court added more detail to the conditions for Cooper’s reinstatement, including that he must submit to his mentor an inventory of his active client files on the first day of each month. That inventory must list clients’ names, the type of representation he’s providing, when the file was opened, recent activity, any foreseen actions and cases’ expected closing dates.

The justices also ordered Cooper to submit to the OLR a plan outlining certain office procedures and to pay for the cost of the proceeding, which was listed at $3,828.81 on Dec. 20.