Milwaukee immigration attorney faced with 1-year suspension for failing to properly represent clients

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A Milwaukee immigration attorney could lose his law license for a year for failing to properly represent two clients and taking a money out of another client’s account for a personal loan.

The Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a 12-count complaint against Matthew Luening of The Luening Law Practice on Dec. 29. It detailed alleged misconduct in three client matters and accused him of practicing without a valid law license for a period of four days.

In 2016, a woman living in Kenya named Luening as her agent to recover survivor death benefits from the military for her deceased husband’s service in the U.S. Air Force. The complaint said he didn’t provide her with a written fee agreement for his representation, but he worked to obtain the benefits for her.

In April 2018, the woman sent Luening a check for $3,000 and a letter thanking him for helping her. The complaint said Luening replied with a letter detailing his economic and personal troubles with his daughter living in another state with his ex-wife.

The woman replied, writing “I received your mssge (sic) and note Babe. I can help you. I can lend you $25,000 if you need it. You can deposit payments when I come over.” The complaint said Luening started withdrawing money from the woman’s checking account using the power of attorney and transferring the money to his account. He took a total of $34,300 from her account without her consent, the OLR said, not including $13,000 paid in attorney’s fees.

When the woman returned to Milwaukee from Kenya in 2019, the complaint said Leuning took another $7,200 from her account to cover her expenses. He started making payments to her for the purported loan and had paid back $33,000 by March of 2020.

The OLR charged him with three counts for failing to communicate in writing the scope of his representation and fees, using the woman’s money to her disadvantage and misappropriating her money for his own personal use.

Luening is faced with an additional seven misconduct violations for his representation of two clients in immigration matters. The OLR said Luening’s failure to reopen a case resulted in a man’s arrest and detainment while he waited for his new lawyer to reopen his immigration proceedings.

The complaint said Luening’s representation of another immigration client was also prejudicial. It said the man was deported, lost the opportunity for a discretionary order in immigration court to obtain a cancellation of removal even though he was eligible, lost his one procedural opportunity to reopen his case based on lack of notice, and denial of his I-130 petition has made it more difficult to obtain a resident visa.

Luening is also charged with two counts of misconduct for practicing without a license for several days. The complaint said there was a four-day gap between when the Board of Bar Examiners suspended his license for failing to comply with continuing legal education requirements and when he filed a petition for reinstatement, and Luening appeared in court for several matters during that time.

The OLR is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to suspend his law license for a year and order him to pay $500 in restitution to one of the immigration clients.

Luening was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 2010. His disciplinary history includes two public reprimands in 2017 for failing to appear for a client’s interview with immigration services and document-filing issues, among other things.

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Follow @WLJReporter