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High court: 3-year suspension, no revocation for Dane County lawyer-turned-contractor

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 23, 2019//

High court: 3-year suspension, no revocation for Dane County lawyer-turned-contractor

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 23, 2019//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended the license of a former Dane County lawyer who now runs a construction company.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation in 2014 charged James Hammis with 48 counts of misconduct involving 10 clients. The OLR later dismissed some of those charges, bringing the total down to 41 counts. The allegations included that Hammis failed to file cases, ignored clients, lied to a judge and improperly transferred thousands of dollars from his trust account to his personal one.

The OLR, in its complaint, asked that Hammis’ license be revoked, meaning he would be banned from practicing law in Wisconsin, though he would be able to petition the court for reinstatement after five years. The OLR also sought $400 in restitution for one of Hammis’ clients.

Hammis in 2016 reached a stipulation with the OLR in which he admitted to some of the charges while the OLR dismissed other charges. He represented himself throughout the proceeding.

While the parties reached a stipulation on the facts of the case, they disagreed on what discipline should be imposed, with the OLR maintaining that referee Jim Mohr recommended that Hammis’ license be revoked. Hammis, for his part, contended that a year-long suspension was appropriate.

After an evidentiary hearing in early 2017, the court-appointed referee in the case, Lisa Goldman, sided with the OLR in a report filed in September 2017. Hammis challenged Goldman’s recommendation, alleging, among other things, that she had improperly relied on certain facts not in the stipulation.

A divided high court on Thursday, however, decided to suspend Hammis’ license for three years instead of revoking it, noting that the misconduct at issue happened between 2008 and 2012 and that at oral argument Hammis said he stepped away from practice in 2011 or 2012.

“Although Attorney Hammis’ misconduct was undeniably very serious, we are not convinced that it rises to the level of warranting revocation,” the court wrote in the per curiam opinion.

However, in a dissenting opinion, Justice Annette Ziegler wrote that she opposed the three-year suspension, saying the majority failed to justify it given that Hammis had not committed misconduct in the last four years and that the court had previously suspended Hammis’ license for four months and 90 days.

Ziegler noted that had the OLR prosecuted the misconduct involving the 90-day suspension and the present case at the same time, it appears as though the court would have imposed a shorter license suspension than what was separately imposed in the two cases.

“The serial nature of the OLR’s complaints against Attorney Hammis appears to expose a flaw in Wisconsin’s attorney regulatory system,” Ziegler wrote.

Justice Rebecca Bradley joined in Ziegler’s dissent.

Hammis’ suspension begins June 3.

The court also ordered, among other things, that should Hammis ever successfully petition for reinstatement, he will have to practice for two years under the supervision of a lawyer, limit his practice to legal work for a corporate client and family and friends and never open a trust account.

The justices also ordered him to pay $400 in restitution to a client before he pays $13,160.22, the cost of the proceedings, to the OLR.

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