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ATTORNEY disciplinary
proceeding. Attorney's license
suspended.
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1. PER CURIAM. We review the comprehensive
stipulation
filed by Attorney M. Joanne Wolf and the
Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) pursuant
to SCR 22.12. The stipulation sets forth
findings of fact and conclusions of law
concerning Attorney Wolf's professional
misconduct including neglecting a case,
making misrepresentations to both her client
and the clerk of court's office, and
altering a public document both fraudulently
and criminally; all the stipulated
misconduct occurred while Attorney Wolf was
representing a client at the time when
Attorney Wolf's law license remained under
suspension for more than six years for her
failure to pay bar dues. The parties also
stipulated to a two-year suspension of
Attorney Wolf's license to practice law as
discipline for this misconduct.
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2. We approve the stipulation and determine
that the seriousness of Attorney Wolf's
misconduct warrants the suspension of her
license to practice law for two years.
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3. Attorney Wolf was admitted to the
practice
of law in Wisconsin in 1980. She previously
served as district attorney in Crawford
county and she currently resides in Prairie
du Chien. In 1991 this court imposed medical
conditions on Attorney Wolf's license.
Disciplinary Proceedings Against Wolf,
165
Wis. 2d 1, 476 N.W.2d 878 (1991). Attorney
Wolf was thereafter suspended from the
practice of law for nonpayment of bar dues,
effective November 2, 1992, and has remained
under suspension since that date.
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4. The specific facts giving rise to this
current disciplinary action reflect that
Attorney Wolf was retained in July 1997 to
represent a client in a divorce action. That
client and her husband had been separated
for many years and the husband's whereabouts
were unknown. Attorney Wolf was told by the
client that she planned to marry her fiancé
on May 16, 1998, and she said she wanted to
be certain that her divorce would be
completed quickly enough so that it would
not interfere with those plans. Attorney
Wolf informed the client that she could not
remarry until six months after the effective
date of the divorce, and thus, the divorce
would need to be final by mid-November 1997.
5. Attorney Wolf subsequently informed
her
client that the final hearing in the divorce
action had been scheduled for November of
1997; later, Attorney Wolf reported that the
hearing date had to be postponed. When the
client expressed concern about the mandatory
six-month waiting period before remarrying,
Attorney Wolf said she would get the final
hearing rescheduled and would ask the judge
to waive the six-month requirement. In fact,
Attorney Wolf had not at that time filed the
divorce petition and did not do so until
March 31, 1998.
6. On April 29, 1998, the circuit court
granted Attorney Wolf's client a default
divorce subject to submission of proof that
the client's husband had been properly
served with the divorce petition by
publication. The judge reminded Attorney
Wolf's client that she could not remarry
until six months after the date of the
divorce. When the client later expressed
concern to Attorney Wolf about that warning,
Attorney Wolf responded that she would have
the judge backdate the divorce judgment.
7. On May 4, 1998, the client went to
Attorney Wolf's office and requested and
received a copy of the findings of fact,
conclusions of law and judgment of divorce
that Attorney Wolf had filed with the
Crawford county clerk of court's office on
that date. That document bore an incorrect
case number and reflected that the divorce
judgment had been granted on October 29,
1997. The document was imprinted with the
stamp of the Crawford county clerk of
court's office showing that it had been
filed on May 4, 1998, and it appeared to
have been signed by the judge on that same
date.
8. Attorney Wolf assured her client that
the
document had been approved by the judge and
that it would be sufficient for the client
to obtain a marriage license. Attorney Wolf,
however, also instructed her client to
destroy the document after the marriage
license had been issued; in addition
Attorney Wolf told her client that she would
soon receive in the mail, a certified copy
of the divorce judgment with the correct
date on it.
9. The circuit court judge had not, in
fact,
approved the use of the incorrect date on
the divorce judgment Attorney Wolf had given
her client.
10. On May 8, 1998, the client took the
copy
of the divorce judgment she had received
from Attorney Wolf to the county clerk's
office to apply for a marriage license. When
the client returned after the five-day
waiting period to pick up the license, she
was informed by the clerk that a marriage
license could not be issued because the copy
of the divorce judgment that had been
submitted bore a date different from that on
the divorce judgment on file in the clerk's
office.
11. On that same day-now only two days
from
the planned wedding-the client told Attorney
Wolf that the marriage license could not be
issued because the six-month waiting period
had not yet expired. Attorney Wolf reassured
the client that Attorney Wolf would take
care of the problem. The next morning,
Attorney Wolf went to the Crawford county
clerk of court's office and attempted to
persuade a deputy clerk to sign a statement
to the effect that a divorce judgment is
granted on the date of the hearing and
entered on the date of the filing. The
deputy clerk of court declined to sign that
statement.
12. Attorney Wolf then went to the
office of
the county clerk with the purported divorce
judgment bearing the incorrect date and
presented it to a deputy county clerk. When
the deputy clerk noted that the dates did
not correspond to the dates shown in the
file in the clerk of court's office,
Attorney Wolf represented that the divorce
had, in fact, been granted on October 29,
1997; Attorney Wolf stated that she would
straighten the matter out with the clerk of
court's office. The deputy county clerk then
issued the marriage license and gave it to
Attorney Wolf who delivered it to her client.
13. Later that afternoon, as the client
and
her fiancé were on the way to their wedding
rehearsal, they were contacted by the police
who informed them that the marriage license
that had been issued was not valid. As a
result, Attorney Wolf's client was unable to
legally marry as she had planned on May 16,
1998, although the couple did participate in
a non-binding ceremony and held the
reception as planned.
14. Subsequently, Attorney Wolf's client
discovered that as of May 16, 1998, there
was no valid judgment of divorce because
Attorney Wolf had not allowed for sufficient
time between the date of publication and the
date of the final hearing. Attorney Wolf's
client later retained different counsel and
then obtained a valid divorce. The client
and her fiancé were finally married in March
of 2000.
15. Based on her actions in this divorce
case, Attorney Wolf was convicted on June
16, 1999, on one count of altering a public
record with intent to defraud, contrary to
Wis. Stat. § 943.38(1)(b), a Class C felony.
Sentence was withheld and she was placed on
probation for four years conditioned upon
performance of 250 hours of community
service and the payment of restitution. A
restitution order was subsequently entered
requiring Attorney Wolf to make restitution
in the amount of $4000 directly to her
former client.
16. Based on these facts, the Board of
Attorneys Professional Responsibility
subsequently charged Attorney Wolf with five
counts of professional misconduct:
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· By providing legal representation when
her law license was under suspension,
respondent engaged in the practice of law in
a jurisdiction where doing so violates the
regulation of the legal profession in that
jurisdiction, in violation of SCR 20:5.5
(a).
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· By failing between July 1997 and March
1998 to file her client's petition for
divorce, respondent failed to act with
reasonable diligence in representing her
client, in violation of SCR 20:1.3.
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· By telling her client that a final
hearing in the divorce action had been
scheduled for November 1997 when respondent
had not filed the divorce petition as of
that date, and in subsequently
misrepresenting to the client that
respondent had arranged with the circuit
court judge for a waiver of the mandatory
six-month waiting period for remarriage,
respondent engaged in conduct involving
dishonesty, deceit and misrepresentation,
contrary to SCR 20:8.4(c).
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· By fraudulently altering a public
document contrary to Wis. Stat. § 943.38(1)
(b), a Class C felony, respondent committed
a criminal act that reflects adversely on
her honesty and trustworthiness, contrary to
SCR 20:8.4(b).
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· By representing to the Crawford county
clerk's office that the divorce judgment she
had fabricated was a genuine document,
respondent engaged in conduct involving
dishonesty, deceit and misrepresentation,
contrary to SCR 20:8.4(c).
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17. The Board of Attorneys Professional
Responsibility voted to seek a two-year
suspension of Attorney Wolf's law license
for these violations. The OLR subsequently
filed this action and now states that this
proffered stipulation reflects the (former)
Board's, the OLR's and Attorney Wolf's
desired result in this matter. The parties
ask this court therefore to approve this
stipulation, adopt the stipulated facts and
conclusions of law, and order a two-year
suspension of Ms. Wolf's license to practice
law in Wisconsin.
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18. We adopt the findings of fact and
conclusions of law set forth in the parties'
stipulation. Attorney Wolf's serious
misconduct warrants a suspension of her
license. The stipulated two-year suspension
is consistent with that ordered in
Disciplinary Proceedings Against Des
Jardins, 163 Wis. 2d 969, 472 N.W.2d 925
(1991), a case, like this, where an attorney
had altered a court document for the purpose
of obtaining a benefit for his client. We
believe that under all the circumstances of
this case, a two-year suspension of Attorney
Wolf's license to practice law in this state
is an appropriate disciplinary response to
impress on her and members of the bar the
seriousness of fabricating a court document
to gain an improper benefit for a client.
19. IT IS ORDERED that the license of M.
Joanne Wolf to practice law in Wisconsin is
suspended for a period of two years
effective as of the date of this order.
20. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that M. Joanne
Wolf
comply with the provisions of SCR 22.26
concerning the duties of a person whose
license to practice law in Wisconsin has
been suspended.
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