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OLR: Referee’s recommendation ‘inappropriately lenient’

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//July 25, 2018//

OLR: Referee’s recommendation ‘inappropriately lenient’

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//July 25, 2018//

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The Office of Lawyer Regulation is challenging a referee’s recommendation that a lawyer out of La Crosse not be suspended for mishandling nearly $30,000 placed in a trust account and then using her own money to try to cover her tracks.

The OLR in 2016 filed a complaint against Sonja Davig, a lawyer specializing in trusts and estates and family law, alleging she had broken eight lawyer-ethics rules while working with her husband at the Holmen-based firm Huesmann Law Office.

According to the charges, Davig had failed to hold $28,409.70 in trust for an estate and several clients, made prohibited electronic deposits and withdrawals from her trust account and used $28,000 of her own money to cover up the money missing from her trust account.

The OLR had asked that the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspend Davig’s law license for a year.

Davig eventually reached a stipulation with the OLR agreeing that the allegations in the complaint were true. The court-appointed referee in the case, Allan Beatty, then only had to decide what disciplinary action Davig should be subject to.

Davig contended the rule violations warranted a public reprimand, meaning the final decision in the case would not only be made public but also sent to her hometown newspaper.

The OLR, however, stood its ground concerning the year-long suspension.

Beatty issued a report in January siding with Davig. He noted that her professional troubles started when she and her husband divorced and dissolved their firm.

Beatty cited three mitigating factors as the primary reasons why he had decided to recommend a public reprimand. One, Davig had no history of professional discipline. Two, her personal troubles and substance abuse, both of which contributed to her rule violations, had been “rectified.” And three, her personal troubles, including her divorce from her husband and partner at her firm, were what had led to her professional troubles.

“The Complainant’s briefs make reasonable arguments for a suspension,” wrote Beatty. “Several precedents are cited. A suspension for Attorney David, however, would be more punitive than productive. The respondent has already taken the steps necessary to protect current and future clients.”

For example, Beatty noted that Davig eventually found a job at a law firm that had procedures and employees in place to properly manage Davig’s trust account. Davig now works at the La Crosse-based firm Johns, Flaherty and Collins.

The OLR filed notice in January that it was appealing Beatty’s recommendations. The agency appealed Beatty’s recommendations because it “unduly depreciates the severity of the misconduct at issue” and called the sanction “inappropriately lenient” and “inconsistent with precedent,” according to recent court filings.

The OLR is contending, among other things, that Beatty’s recommendations were not supported by the record or case law. The agency noted, for instance, that Beatty should not have considered Davig’s personal troubles and substance abuse, since the record did not show that they had been a cause of her misconduct.

The OLR is being represented in the appeal by its retained counsel, Matthew Anich of the Ashland-based firm Dallenbach, Anich & Wickman. Davig is representing herself.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will review Davig and the OLR’s arguments as well as Beatty’s recommendations and will issue a final decision in the matter.

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