Out Of Trust

The Wisconsin Supreme Court expressed some concerns but nonetheless accepted the voluntary license revocation of an attorney admitted in 2008. 

Given the [Office of Lawyer Regulation]’s admitted inability to determine whether any particular client or third party is owed any money by Attorney Walsh, and to arrive at a reasonably ascertainable amount, we have no choice but to accede to the OLR’s request not to award restitution in this matter. We are disturbed that this outcome appears to result from Attorney Walsh’s failure to create, preserve, and/or produce the necessary records. We note, however, that if Attorney Walsh were ever to seek the reinstatement of his license, he would be required to prove affirmatively that he had made full restitution to all persons injured or harmed by his misconduct.

Finally, because this matter is being resolved via a petition for consensual revocation without the need to appoint a referee or hold an extensive hearing, we do not impose any costs on Attorney Walsh.

It began with trust overdrafts

Although the OLR’s investigation was hampered by Attorney Walsh’s refusal or inability to provide records for his trust account, the available information shows that on multiple occasions, the trust account contained substantially less money than it should have in 2014 and 2015. For example, bank records show that the balance in the trust account was $469,349.55 on May 31, 2014. At that time, the trust account should have contained at least $78,351.86 in funds belonging to two clients, J.M.G. and M.J.E. Subtracting that amount from the balance would leave a remaining balance of $390,997.69. This amount, however, was more than $50,000 less than Attorney Walsh had previously admitted in a letter he should have been holding for another client, a substantial trust. Indeed, that amount would have been m ore than $78,000 less than the amount identified in the March 28, 2014 annual report of the trust. Moreover, the limited records the OLR was able to obtain indicate thatAttorney Walsh deposited over $589,000 into his trust account on behalf of the trust, but those records also show total disbursements of only approximately $530,000 to proper recipients of the trust’s funds. Because the OLR has not been able to obtain complete records, it cannot tell whether there were other disbursements to proper recipients for which records are not available or whether Attorney Walsh converted some or all of the remaining trust’s funds to his own use…

What is clear is that in at least one case, the balance of Attorney Walsh’s client trust account dipped more than $30,000 below the amount that should have been held in trust for just one client. Thus, that amount of client funds had to have been converted to the use of other clients or to Attorney Walsh’s personal use.

(Mike Frisch)