Referee: Milwaukee attorney should be publicly reprimanded

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A referee is recommending that the Wisconsin Supreme Court publicly reprimand a Milwaukee lawyer accused of improperly billing a client.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation charged Thomas Napierala last June with violating three attorney-ethics rules. Napierala, along with another lawyer, had been hired by a client to challenge an estate matter in Milwaukee County. The client also hired Napierala for legal advice in other matters.

The OLR alleges that Napierala billed the client for thousands of dollars that were not reasonably billable to Napierala and that were not owed. Also, Napierala did not explain that he would be charging for work done by his staff, according to the OLR.

The OLR sought a public reprimand of Napierala, who initially denied the allegations in September.

In March, Napierala withdrew his answer to the complaint and reached a stipulation with the OLR in which he pleaded no contest to the three charges of misconduct and agreed to the public reprimand. That meant Napierala would not be banned from practicing but that the final decision in his disciplinary case, which will be issued by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, would be publicly available on the state court system’s website, as well as the OLR’s, and would be sent to his hometown newspaper.

The court-appointed referee in the case, Kim Peterson, filed a report last week recommending that the high court accept Napierala and the OLR’s stipulation. She also found that Napierala had committed the misconduct laid out in the complaint and recommended that the justices impose a public reprimand on Napierala.

“The misconduct is serious, but it involves only one client matter and there does not seem to be a need to protect the public from possible repetition of this conduct, since it appears this is the first time that this lawyer has been discipline over 25 years of practice,” wrote Peterson. “It also appears that the misconduct was not intentional, but resulted from a lack of attention and detail and the failure to delineate the various interests of the actors involved.”

The high court will review Peterson’s findings and issue a final decision in the matter. Follow @erikastrebel