Hello, Carolyn, Nicely said. Your approach sounds far better than what happened in Wisconsin’s sluggish discipline system. Hausmann was officially in “good standing” for far too long.

David, I am sure that my comments will surprise you but I agree that the Wisconsin Bar was remiss in failing to immediately inform the public about Hausmann’s criminal case and initiate a disciplinary action. I would actually prefer to see more of these types of ethical violations handled through the criminal system rather than the disciplinary system because it would weed out the kinds of frivolous cases (e.g., calling a judge a name, not returning daily phone calls from a crackpot client who’s not paid the bill) that the bar sometimes pursues. Once a lawyer is found guilty of defrauding a client, perjury or other crimes, then the bar has much stronger grounds for automatically suspending the lawyer’s license, pending a hearing on a longer suspension or disbarment. However, the automatic suspension would apply only where the lawyer’s criminal actions relate directly to clients or the practice of law; if a lawyer is convicted of DUI for example, I don’t think that’s grounds for an automatic license suspension.