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The Respondent, Attorney Mark R. Mullen
(“Mullen”), age 39, was admitted to the
practice of law in Wisconsin on September
28, 2001 and practices in Chippewa Falls,
Wisconsin. Mullen is the managing attorney
at his firm.
On November 15, 2012, the Director
of the Assigned Counsel Division
(“Director”) of the Office of the State
Public Defender (“SPD”) filed a grievance
against Mullen with OLR.
In the grievance, the Director stated, “The
ACD division is responsible for appointing
private lawyers to take public defender
cases and for auditing and paying those
bills. In the course of auditing, as
explained below, I have received information
that leads me to believe that the Mullen Law
Group is stealing from the State Public
Defender Agency.”
In the grievance, the Director stated that
an intern at Mullen’s firm informed her that
a paralegal/office manager at the Mullen Law
Group had been billing the SPD for the
intern’s hours and the paralegal’s hours.
The Director further stated, “I received a
call from [the paralegal] on or about
October 29. She stated that she had worked
as a paralegal at the Mullen Law Group for
approximately one year (since the fall of
2011). She stated that she was responsible
for inputting the attorney hours into the
SPD billing website and that she had been
instructed to bill her paralegal hours to
the SPD website as well.”
On November 14, 2012, pursuant to PD 1.03
(3), Mullen was suspended from the SPD
certification lists. In a November 14, 2012
letter via email to Mullen, the Director
stated:
This letter is to notify you that the
State
Public Defender Agency has temporarily
suspended your law firm from handling SPD
cases. This suspension may become
permanent, depending on the outcome of the
investigation described below.
It has come to our attention that your
firm
has been billing administrative assistant
time to the State Public Defender as
attorney time. The SPD billing rules
prohibit assigned counsel attorneys from
billing administrative assistant time as
attorney time. You have been warned about
this in the past. In 2007 you were the
focus of an SPD investigation for improperly
billing paralegal time as attorney time.
During that investigation former ACD
Director [D.S.] corresponded and spoke with
you about the fact you had improperly billed
attorney time for your paralegal to make
jail visits.
In responding to the grievance, Mullen
acknowledged that he had notice that it was
impermissible to bill the SPD for
administrative assistant time. Mullen also
acknowledged that his firm in fact billed
administrative assistant time to the SPD as
attorney time.
An associate at Mullen’s firm informed OLR
that, “Pursuant to the office policy at the
time I was hired, [the paralegal] would log
onto the SPD billing site with my username
and password and enter the billable hours
from each day as well as submit for
billing. I believed she was only entering
the hours I handed her, that is, the hours I
recorded on the case activity log sheet.”
The associate further stated, “Once the hour
logs were given to [the paralegal] I no
longer had control over them; she would keep
the written logs in a file in her desk.
This policy was in place when I joined the
firm and was set by the managing attorney
Mark Mullen and used by him and [the
paralegal].”
All time entered into the SPD online billing
website by an attorney is certified as work
the attorney performed by selecting the “(A)
ccept Agreement” option in the Billing
Confirmation webpage.
With respect to entering time on the SPD
website, the associate stated:
I was not the person selecting “(A)
ccept
agreement” when the closed cases were
submitted. The office policy when I was
hired was to turn our handwritten billable
hours over to the office assistant to enter
into the online billing site and to submit
the closed cases by selecting “(A)ccept
agreement”.
Another associate at Mullen’s firm, stated:
I did not personally click “Accept
Agreement,” as per our office policy. Our
policy, which was established by our
managing partner, Mark Mullen, was to submit
our written hours to our assistant who would
then enter the amounts. Once the case was
completed, our assistant was to submit the
bill to the public defender.
The paralegal unequivocally stated to OLR
that Mullen told her to bill his hours and
her own hours to the SPD. The paralegal
informed OLR that when she began working for
Mullen’s firm, Mullen provided her with his
identification number and password, and
instructed her on how to bill the SPD on its
website.
In a March 18, 2013 email to the SPD, Mullen
stated his intention to voluntarily
decertify himself and remove his name from
any and all SPD certification lists per SPD
rule 1.07. Mullen also agreed to a 100 hour
reduction from his pending SPD invoices.
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By charging and collecting fees from the SPD
for work performed in part by his paralegal,
Mullen violated SCR 20:1.5(a), which in
relevant part states, “A lawyer shall not
make an agreement for, charge, or collect an
unreasonable fee or an unreasonable amount
for expenses.”
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By failing to make reasonable efforts to
establish internal policies and procedures
designed to identify and prevent improper
billing of the SPD by his firm’s attorneys,
Mullen violated SCR 20:5.1(a), which
states, “A partner in a law firm, and a
lawyer who individually or together with
other lawyers possesses comparable
managerial authority in a law firm, shall
make reasonable efforts to ensure that the
firm has in effect measures giving
reasonable assurance that all lawyers in the
firm conform to the Rules of Professional
Conduct.”
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By failing to make reasonable efforts to
establish internal policies and procedures
designed to identify and prevent improper
billing by his firm via the conduct of his
paralegal, and by failing to have in place
adequate supervisory measures, Mullen
violated, SCR 20:5.3(a), which states, “With
respect to a nonlawyer employed or retained
by or associated with a lawyer: (a) a
partner, and a lawyer who individually or
together with other lawyers possesses
comparable managerial authority in a law
firm shall make reasonable efforts to ensure
that the firm has in effect measures giving
reasonable assurance that the person’s
conduct is compatible with the professional
obligations of the lawyer…”
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By directing his paralegal to bill the SPD
for work performed in part by his paralegal,
and thereby directing the paralegal to
engage in conduct that would have violated
SCR 20:8.4(c) had he engaged in the conduct
himself, Mullen violated the following Rules
of Professional Conduct:
SCR 20:5.3(c) Responsibilities
regarding
nonlawyer assistants
With respect to a nonlawyer employed
or
retained by or associated with a lawyer:
…
(c) a lawyer shall be responsible for
conduct of such a person that would be a
violation of the Rules of Professional
Conduct if engaged in by a lawyer if:
(1) the lawyer orders or, with
the
knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies
the conduct involved; or
(2) the lawyer is a partner or
has
comparable managerial authority in the law
firm in which the person is employed, or has
direct supervisory authority over the
person, and knows of the conduct at a time
when its consequences can be avoided or
mitigated but fails to take reasonable
remedial action.
SCR 20:8.4 Misconduct
It is professional misconduct for a
lawyer
to:…
(a) violate or attempt to violate the
Rules
of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or
induce another to do so, or do so through
the acts of another
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By establishing an office procedure in which
his paralegal was to bill the SPD for work
performed at least in part by the paralegal,
in violation of SPD billing rules, Mullen
violated SCR 20:8.4(c), which states, “It is
professional misconduct for a lawyer to:…(c)
engage in conduct involving dishonesty,
fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”
Mullen has no prior discipline.
In accordance with SCR 22.09(3), Attorney
Respondent is hereby publicly reprimanded.
Dated this 10 day of September, 2013.
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