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Referee: La Crosse attorney violated attorney-ethics rules

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 19, 2018//

Referee: La Crosse attorney violated attorney-ethics rules

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 19, 2018//

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A referee has found that a La Crosse attorney violated three attorney-ethics rules while working on a divorce case.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a complaint on July 6 alleging that Donald Harman, a lawyer out of La Crosse, had committed three counts of misconduct while representing a man in a divorce case in La Crosse.

According to the allegations, Harman made improper submissions to a family-court commissioner and disobeyed two court orders handed down in the case.

The OLR is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend Harman’s law license for six months and order Harman to pay a $4,400 contempt judgment.

Harman in August filed an answer and motion to dismiss the OLR’s complaint. The OLR, filed a motion for summary judgment in September, contending that Harman’s filing failed to deny any of the allegations in the complaint, so he in effect admitted to the misconduct.

Harman failed to participate on a telephone hearing in the case, contending in an email before that hearing that he had believed the court-appointed referee in the case, Allan Beatty, wanted Harman to waive the right to object to Beatty being appointed to hear the case. Harman alleged that Beatty was a former employer of the family-court commissioner involved in the case and therefore could not carry out his judicial duty to be impartial in the case.

The same day as the hearing, Beatty denied Harman’s motion for a dismissal and granted the OLR’s motion for summary judgement. He also instructed the parties to submit briefs about what sort of discipline they think Beatty ought to recommend.

Beatty’s written recommendations to the court are expected to be filed in December. The high court will review them and issue a final decision in the matter.

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