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As it stands now, the maximum penalty a lawyer can receive is a five-year license revocation. The term disbarred, at least in Wisconsin, doesn’t appear to mean very much. We’d favor a lifetime ban for the most serious offenses.
Spivak and Ben Poston’s “Bar None” series found that clients hired lawyers suspected of wrongdoing and entrusted them with their money because there is little or no transparency in the state’s disciplinary system.
One example: Peter Elliott received a check for $100,000 from a new client four months after regulators began investigating him. Now disbarred, Elliott is serving a 10-year federal prison term for stealing $3.6 million from clients. He recently was sentenced to five more years in prison for bank robbery.
Spivak found that as of earlier this year at least 135 lawyers who have criminal records were practicing in Wisconsin. His investigation also found that Wisconsin was more lenient than other states in dealing with misbehaving lawyers. Even those convicted of serious crimes keep practicing law.
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