Case Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Herbert L. Usow

Citation: 

Docket Number: 1996AP003304-D

State: wisconsin

Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Date: 1997-12-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
96-3304-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary 
Proceedings Against 
Herbert L. Usow, 
Attorney at Law. 
 
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST USOW 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
December 11, 1997 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
1 
 
NOTICE 
This opinion is subject to further editing and 
modification.  The final version will appear in 
the bound volume of the official reports. 
 
 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against HERBERT L. USOW, Attorney at Law. 
FILED 
 
DEC 11, 1997 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney’s 
license 
suspended.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   We review the recommendation of the 
referee that the license of Herbert L. Usow to practice law in 
Wisconsin be suspended for six months as discipline for 
professional 
misconduct. 
That 
misconduct 
consisted 
of 
misrepresenting the amount and date of legal services he 
provided to a client, failing to hold in trust and separate from 
his own property funds belonging to that client that he received 
in connection with her representation, failing to provide that 
client written notice that he had received property belonging to 
her, 
and 
making 
false 
statements 
of 
material 
fact 
or 
misrepresentations during the Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility (Board) investigation into his conduct in this 
matter. We determine that the recommended license suspension is 
appropriate discipline to impose for that misconduct, taking 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
2 
into consideration prior similar misconduct for which Attorney 
Usow has been disciplined.  
¶2 
Attorney Usow was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 
1948 and practices in Milwaukee. He has been disciplined twice 
previously. In 1984, the court suspended his license for 90 days 
as discipline for representing both a corporation and one of its 
shareholders 
when 
that 
multiple 
representation 
adversely 
affected his representation of the corporation, giving the 
appearance of professional impropriety in the matter, disbursing 
funds belonging to the corporation to one of the shareholders, 
engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and misrepresentation, 
acting in the presence of conflicting interests, and taking his 
fees without his client’s consent from client funds held in 
trust and without giving a proper accounting of client funds. 
Disciplinary Proceedings Against Usow, 119 Wis. 2d 255, 349 
N.W.2d 480. In 1985, the court again suspended his license for 
90 days, this time as discipline for failing to make a 
distribution of proceeds in a divorce proceeding pursuant to a 
stipulation and for misrepresenting to the court in a civil 
action that he had retained a private investigator and that the 
investigator had made a written report concerning the activities 
of the plaintiff in that action. Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Usow, 122 Wis. 2d 640, 363 N.W.2d 436.  
¶3 
Following a disciplinary hearing, the referee in the 
instant proceeding, Attorney John Decker, made findings of fact 
concerning Attorney Usow’s representation of a client in a 
divorce action and his conduct during the Board’s investigation 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
3 
of it. When the client retained him to represent her in June, 
1994, Attorney Usow required and received a $2500 retainer, in 
return for which he agreed to provide approximately 16.5 hours 
of legal services, with subsequent services to be charged at a 
$150 
hourly 
rate. 
At 
the 
time 
that 
representation 
was 
undertaken, the client was involuntarily committed to a mental 
health unit as a result of the consequences of a stroke.  
¶4 
In 
addition 
to 
the 
retainer, 
Attorney 
Usow 
subsequently received funds belonging to the client totaling 
approximately $1517. Those funds were sent to him in the form of 
checks that included dividends on the client’s investments and 
support payments from her spouse. Some of those checks were 
deposited by Attorney Usow or by his office staff into his 
client trust account and others into his law office account. 
Attorney Usow had instructed his staff to use her own discretion 
in determining into which account the checks were to be 
deposited.  
¶5 
In 
early 
October, 
1994, 
the 
client’s 
condition 
improved, and she determined that she no longer wanted a divorce 
but wished to reconcile with her spouse and have the action 
dismissed. The day following her meeting with him to inform him 
of that fact, Attorney Usow withdrew the client’s funds that 
remained in his trust account, totaling $719.24, without first 
having prepared an itemized billing of the services he had 
rendered. While he had the client’s oral consent to apply those 
funds to his fees, Attorney Usow had prepared no billings up to 
that point and furnished the client no specific or written 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
4 
accounting of either the receipt of the funds belonging to her 
or his application of them to her account. In addition, he did 
not calculate the actual time he had spent on the client’s 
matter so as to accurately inform her of the amount of fees he 
had earned as of the date of his withdrawal of her funds.  
¶6 
On November 26, 1994, Attorney Usow sent the client a 
bill in the amount of $4500 for his representation over a period 
of five months. The bill was not accompanied by any itemized 
statement of services rendered and did not show any credit for 
the retainer the client had paid or for her funds Attorney Usow 
had received and deposited into his law office account or his 
client trust account.  
¶7 
The following month, the client asked Attorney Usow 
for a particularized accounting of the hours for which she had 
been billed and a credit for the retainer she had paid, as well 
as a listing of all of her property that was in his possession. 
When that information was not provided, the client made a second 
request and ultimately met with Attorney Usow in February, 1995. 
Following that meeting, Attorney Usow signed the stipulation for 
dismissal of the divorce action that had been prepared by the 
attorney for the client’s spouse and agreed to return the 
client’s treasury bonds in his possession. He delivered those 
bonds to the spouse’s attorney the following day.  
¶8 
On March 1, 1995, Attorney Usow sent the client a copy 
of his original bill, showing a balance of $4500, but not an 
itemized statement of services rendered or a credit for the 
retainer or the client’s other funds he had received. The client 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
5 
then filed a request for fee arbitration, to which Attorney Usow 
consented. In his answer filed in that arbitration, Attorney 
Usow stated that his fees for representing the client were $7850 
and that he had received only $350 from the client. He attached 
to that answer what purported to be notes describing his 
services that indicated he had performed 128.5 hours of service, 
although the individual items set forth in those notes totaled 
almost 140 hours. Attorney Usow sent the client a copy of that 
accounting when he filed it with the arbitration panel.  
¶9 
The arbitration panel determined that Attorney Usow’s 
file records were inadequate to support an award of more than 
$3525, or 23.5 hours of service. The panel expressed its opinion 
that Attorney Usow had spent more than that amount of time on 
the matter but stated that his lack of records made it 
impossible to determine the actual time spent. The arbitrators 
specifically did not find that the hours claimed by Attorney 
Usow had not actually been spent on the client’s matter.  
¶10 The accounting Attorney Usow appended to his answer in 
the arbitration matter contained duplicative, speculative and 
inflated charges, due primarily to carelessness and neglect, as 
well as Attorney Usow’s failure to provide adequate supervision 
of his office staff. For example, the accounting did not 
identify the person performing specific services, despite the 
fact that others, including an associate and a law clerk, each 
of whom had lower hourly billing rates, worked on the matter. 
Also, the accounting misrepresented the services provided in 
several respects. It listed three contacts with opposing 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
6 
counsel, but, based on that attorney’s contemporaneous records, 
the referee found that those contacts had not occurred. It set 
forth that it was Attorney Usow who had secured the appointment 
of a guardian ad litem to represent the client, when he had not 
done so, and that he or members of his office had attended two 
conferences at the mental health center where the client 
resided, when in fact no such conferences took place.  
¶11 The referee concluded that by causing the accounting 
to be sent to his client and to the fee arbitration panel, 
Attorney Usow engaged in conduct involving misrepresentation as 
to the amount and date of legal services he rendered, in 
violation of SCR 20:8.4(c).1 The referee also concluded that 
Attorney Usow’s placing client funds in his law office account 
and sending the client a check drawn on his client trust account 
when no funds of that client were in that account violated SCR 
20:1.15(a)2 and that by not providing the client written notice 
                     
1 SCR 20:8.4 provides, in pertinent part: Misconduct 
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: 
 . . .  
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit 
or misrepresentation;  
2 SCR 20:1.15 provides, in pertinent part: Safekeeping 
property 
No. 96-3304-D 
 
7 
of his receipt of funds belonging to her, he violated SCR 
20:1.15(b).3 The referee concluded, however, that there was no 
clear and convincing evidence to establish that the hourly rate 
and the total fee Attorney Usow charged his client in this 
matter were unreasonable, as the Board had alleged.  
¶12 In his initial response to the grievance concerning 
his conduct in this matter, Attorney Usow stated to the Board 
that he always had given the client written itemizations of the 
services he had rendered. He subsequently acknowledged that, 
with the exception of the accounting in which he set forth his 
                                                                  
(a) A lawyer shall hold in trust, separate from the 
lawyer’s own property, property of clients or third persons that 
is 
in 
the 
lawyer’s 
possession 
in 
connection 
with 
a 
representation. All funds of clients paid to a lawyer or law 
firm shall be deposited in one or more identifiable trust 
accounts as provided in paragraph (c) maintained in a bank, 
trust company, credit union or savings and loan association 
authorized to do business and located in Wisconsin, which 
account shall be clearly designated as “Client’s Account” or 
“Trust Account” or words of similar import, and no funds 
belonging to the lawyer or law firm except funds reasonably 
sufficient to pay account service charges may be deposited in 
such an account.  . . .   
3 SCR 20:1.15 provides, in pertinent part: Safekeeping 
property 
 . . .  
(b) Upon receiving funds or other property in which a 
client or third person has an interest, a lawyer shall promptly 
notify the client or third person in writing. Except as stated 
in this rule or otherwise permitted by law or by agreement with 
the client, a lawyer shall promptly deliver to the client or 
third person any funds or other property that the client or 
third person is entitled to receive and, upon request by the 
client or third person, shall render a full accounting regarding 
such property.   
No. 96-3304-D 
 
8 
notes of the representation, he never provided the client 
written itemizations of services he claimed to have rendered. 
The referee concluded that Attorney Usow thus made a false 
statement 
of 
material 
fact 
or 
a 
misrepresentation 
in 
a 
disclosure in connection with the Board’s investigation, in 
violation of SCR 22.07(2). 4  
¶13 As 
discipline 
for 
that 
misconduct, 
the 
referee 
recommended that Attorney Usow’s license to practice law be 
suspended for six months. While noting that there had been no 
suggestion that Attorney Usow intended to convert any of this 
client’s funds and that he ultimately accounted for all of it, 
the 
referee 
emphasized 
that 
the 
misrepresentations 
and 
mishandling of client funds to be held in trust were similar to 
the misconduct for which he had been disciplined previously.  
¶14 We 
adopt 
the 
referee’s 
findings 
of 
fact 
and 
conclusions of law and determine that the recommended six-month 
license suspension is appropriate discipline to impose for 
                     
4 SCR 22.07 provides, in pertinent part: Investigation. 
 . . .  
(2) 
During 
the 
course 
of 
an 
investigation, 
the 
administrator or a committee may notify the respondent of the 
subject being investigated. The respondent shall fully and 
fairly disclose all facts and circumstances pertaining to the 
alleged misconduct or medical incapacity within 20 days of being 
served by ordinary mail a request for response to a grievance. 
The administrator in his or her discretion may allow additional 
time 
to 
respond. 
Failure 
to 
provide 
information 
or 
misrepresentation 
in 
a 
disclosure 
is 
misconduct. 
The 
administrator or committee may make a further investigation 
before making a recommendation to the board.   
No. 96-3304-D 
 
9 
Attorney Usow’s professional misconduct established in this 
proceeding. The serious nature of that misconduct, particularly 
the potential it created for financial harm to the client, 
warrants discipline more severe than previously imposed on 
Attorney Usow for similar misconduct. In addition to that 
license suspension, we require that Attorney Usow pay the costs 
of this disciplinary proceeding, as the referee had recommended.  
¶15 IT IS ORDERED that the license of Herbert L. Usow to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of six 
months, commencing January 12, 1998.  
¶16 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date 
of this order, Herbert L. Usow pay to the Board of Attorneys 
Professional Responsibility 
the costs 
of this 
proceeding, 
provided that if the costs are not paid within the time 
specified and absent a showing to this court of his inability to 
pay the costs within that time, the license of Herbert L. Usow 
to practice law in Wisconsin shall remain suspended until 
further order of the court.  
¶17 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Herbert L. Usow comply with 
the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a person 
whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been suspended.  
 
 
1