Hudson attorney faces 2-year license suspension

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A Hudson attorney faces a two-year license suspension over allegations that he violated more than a dozen attorney-ethics rules.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a complaint on March 21, alleging that Christopher Petros of Hudson-based Petros Law Office committed 17 counts of misconduct involving five clients, three of whom the State Public defender’s office had appointed Petros to represent in criminal cases in either Sawyer or Barron County.

The alleged violations include taking two years to file a lawsuit, failing to take any action to pursue that case and lying to the OLR about returning $750 fees that he had charged a client for work he never did.

One client, Ashley Halpin, had hired him to set up a special-needs trust for her that would let her access more than $30,000 in life-insurance money but still keep her disability benefits.

Petros charged Halpin $2,000 to set up the trust and, in February 2017, deposited Halpin’s life-insurance money into his trust account. But months later, Halpin discovered that Petros had never established the trust. She fired him and hired a different lawyer, according to the OLR.

Although Petros never set up the trust, he never refunded the $2,000 fee, according to the complaint. Also, Petros should have been holding $22,012.77 of Halpin’s money, including the fee, in his trust account by December 2017. However, his account balance at that time was $1.02, according to the complaint. The OLR alleges he spent the money on expenses not related to Halpin’s case.

The OLR is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend Petros’ law license for two years and order him to pay more than $24,000 to Halpin.

Petros could not be reached at the email address or telephone number listed on the State Bar of Wisconsin’s website.

Petros, who has been licensed to practice law in Wisconsin since 2009, has been disciplined at least two times by the high court. He was publicly reprimanded in 2017 and suspended for 90 days in 2014 as reciprocal discipline for conduct the Minnesota Supreme Court suspending him for in 2013. He earned his degree in 2002 from what was then the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Petros’ license is in good standing, according to the Bar and the OLR’s websites.