Attorney Debra L. Hayes Colcord of Wausau represented the plaintiff, a minor, in a personal injury action filed in circuit court. On November 17, 1995, in the course of the litigation, an attorney for certain of the defendants deposed the plaintiff's grandmother, who was not a party to the action and was not represented by counsel. As the witness described a prior telephone conversation with Colcord in which the two had discussed the case, Colcord interjected, "I taped that call by the way." In a separate deposition conducted later that same day, counsel for one of the defendants to the action asked Colcord whether she was going to voluntarily produce the tape of the telephone conversation to which she had referred during the prior deposition. Colcord responded, on the record, "There is no tape."

Colcord thought that the grandmother, in the course of her deposition, was testifying in an untruthful manner regarding the telephone conversation with Colcord, and that by representing to the witness that their conversation had been taped, when, in fact, it had not been taped, she might induce more truthful deposition testimony.

The Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility concluded that Colcord, by falsely stating to a deposition witness that a prior telephone conversation between the two had been taped, violated SCR 20:4.1(a), which states, "In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly . . . make a false statement of a material fact or law to a third person"; and SCR 20:8.4(c), which prohibits conduct involving misrepresentation.

SCR 20:8.4(c)Colcord was publicly reprimanded in 1994 for misconduct involving a failure to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client in an administrative proceeding, in violation of SCR 20:1.3, and knowingly making untrue statements in the same proceeding, under oath, to an administrative law judge, in violation of SCR 20:3.3(a)(1) and (4), and SCR 20:8.4(c).