Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Addison

2012 WI 38, 813 N.W.2d 201, 340 Wis. 2d 16, 2012 WL 1110113, 2012 Wisc. LEXIS 33
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedApril 4, 2012
DocketNo. 2010AP3014-D
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2012 WI 38 (Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Addison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Addison, 2012 WI 38, 813 N.W.2d 201, 340 Wis. 2d 16, 2012 WL 1110113, 2012 Wisc. LEXIS 33 (Wis. 2012).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

¶ 1. This is a companion case to In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Butler, 2012 WI 37 (No. 2010AP3013-D), which is being released at the same time as this opinion. Both cases involve the same underlying set of facts and one or more criminal convictions arising from those facts. As in Butler, we determine whether discipline reciprocal to that imposed by the Supreme Court of Illinois, which in this case would be a 60-day suspension, should be imposed on Attorney Stephan Walter Addison. Although the conduct of Attorney Addison at issue here, like the conduct of Attorney Benjamin C. Butler, is both unprofessional and unseemly, and although we may have imposed a more severe level of discipline if the Office of Lawyer [18]*18Regulation (OLR) had prosecuted this matter directly in the first instance rather than filing a reciprocal discipline complaint, given the standards in our rules that apply to reciprocal discipline situations, we impose the same 60-day suspension on Attorney Addison's license to practice law in Wisconsin that was imposed in Illinois. Because Attorney Addison agreed to the imposition of reciprocal discipline before a referee was appointed, we do not impose costs on him for this proceeding.

¶ 2. On December 14, 2010, the OLR filed a formal disciplinary complaint against Attorney Addison for the imposition of reciprocal discipline and a motion requesting the court to issue an order to show cause to Attorney Addison. On March 31, 2011, the court ordered Attorney Addison to inform the court of any claim, predicated on the grounds set forth in SCR 22.22(3),1 why the imposition of discipline identical to that imposed by the Supreme Court of Illinois would be unwarranted, and of the factual basis for any such claim. On April 11, 2011, Attorney Addison filed a response stating that he was not making any claim under SCR 22.22(3) and that he was not raising any objection to the imposition of discipline identical to that imposed in Illinois.

[19]*19¶ 3. Because this matter involves allegations of serious misconduct that occurred in Wisconsin and resulted in Attorney Addison's December 2006 criminal convictions in a Wisconsin court, on September 23, 2011, this court issued an order directing the OLR to advise the court as to why it had chosen in this matter to seek the imposition of reciprocal discipline under SCR 22.22 rather than to conduct its own investigation and pursue its own disciplinary complaint under SCRs 22.11 through 22.16.

¶ 4. The OLR filed a response to the court's order on October 12, 2011. Its response states that it first learned of the criminal charges against Attorneys Addison and Butler in December 2005. It opened grievance investigations against them at that time, but placed those investigations on hold pending the result of the criminal actions in Green Lake County, Wisconsin. The OLR's response indicates that, for a number of reasons, it will commonly place investigations in which there are pending criminal charges on hold until those criminal charges have been resolved.

¶ 5. In this situation, after the OLR received notice of the convictions and sentences imposed on Attorneys Addison and Butler in December 2006, it reopened its investigations. Approximately one month later, however, it was notified that the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (the Illinois Commission) had also opened a grievance investigation against Attorneys Addison and Butler. The Illinois Commission expressly informed the OLR that it had set aside resources to conduct an investigation of the matter that would go beyond the record compiled in the criminal case and that it intended to conduct supplemental interviews of the victim and other witnesses.

[20]*20¶ 6. The OLR's response states that after it was informed of the Illinois Commission's investigation, the OLR director made the decision to allow the Illinois Commission to take the lead role in investigating the conduct of Attorneys Addison and Butler and in seeking discipline because both attorneys were practicing law primarily in Illinois for Illinois law firms. The OLR further explains that it wanted to avoid the duplicative use of investigatory resources in the two jurisdictions. It states that it is common for it and other lawyer regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions to allow the "primary jurisdiction," i.e., the jurisdiction in which the attorney is primarily practicing, to investigate and impose discipline in the first instance, with the other applicable jurisdictions then seeking the imposition of reciprocal discipline.

¶ 7. The OLR's response further asserts that it communicated periodically with the Illinois Commission during the more than three years in which the Illinois Commission conducted its investigation and its prosecution of the Illinois disciplinary action. The OLR notes that it was ultimately able to review the more than 1,700 pages of discovery from the criminal actions that Attorneys Addison and Butler provided to the Illinois Commission, plus copies of a video discovery deposition of a witness, the discovery depositions of the two respondent attorneys, expert witness information, and other video and audio evidence. In addition, the Illinois Commission provided to the OLR another 1,400 pages of documents from its own investigation. The OLR asserts that, following the conclusion of the Illinois disciplinary proceeding, it reviewed and evaluated these voluminous documents before it reached the determination not to conduct its own independent investigation and instead to seek the imposition of reciprocal discipline.

[21]*21¶ 8. Because the record in this proceeding still did not contain information regarding the factual basis for the felony to which Attorney Addison ultimately pled no contest, we issued a second order directing the OLR to state the factual basis for the felony charge and to provide public documents from the criminal case that related to the factual basis. The OLR's response contained a stipulation filed in the Green Lake County action at the time Attorney Addison entered his plea to a reduced charge, as well as the transcripts of the plea and sentencing hearings. The content of the criminal stipulation will be discussed later in this opinion.

¶ 9. Given that this matter has been presented to us in the context of a request for the imposition of reciprocal discipline, we are constrained to follow the rules that we have adopted for such proceedings. See SCR 22.22. We therefore shall impose the identical discipline imposed in the other jurisdiction unless we determine that one of the three exceptions set forth in SCR 22.22(3) applies. In assessing whether one of those exceptions applies, we further are limited to the record in this matter, which primarily consists of the OLR's complaint, the documents from the Illinois disciplinary proceeding that have been filed by the OLR, and the documents relating to Attorney Addison's no contest plea to the felony charge in the Green Lake County criminal action that have also been submitted by the OLR. In particular, the stipulations entered in the Green Lake County criminal cases and in the Illinois disciplinary proceeding are the only sources in the record of this proceeding of facts that have been proven or stipulated regarding the underlying events. The factual recitation that follows is primarily taken from those stipulations.

[22]*22¶ 10. Attorney Addison was admitted to the practice of law in Wisconsin in June 2004.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2012 WI 38, 813 N.W.2d 201, 340 Wis. 2d 16, 2012 WL 1110113, 2012 Wisc. LEXIS 33, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/office-of-lawyer-regulation-v-addison-wis-2012.