Case Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Jonathan A. Olson

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wisconsin

Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Date: 1998-03-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
97-3554-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Jonathan A. Olson, Attorney at  
Law. 
  
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST OLSON 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
March 12, 1998 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 97-3544-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. 97-3544-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against JONATHAN A. OLSON, Attorney at 
Law. 
FILED 
 
MAR 12, 1998 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney’s 
license 
suspended.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM    We review, pursuant to SCR 21.09(3m),1 
the stipulation by which Attorney Jonathan A. Olson and the 
Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility (Board) agreed to 
facts concerning Attorney Olson’s professional misconduct in 
using for his personal purposes funds of the law firm where he 
                     
1 SCR 21.09 provides, in pertinent part: Procedure. 
 . . .  
(3m) The board may file with a complaint a stipulation by 
the board and the respondent attorney to the facts, conclusions 
of law and discipline to be imposed. The supreme court may 
consider the complaint and stipulation without appointing a 
referee. If the supreme court approves the stipulation, it shall 
adopt the stipulated facts and conclusions of law and impose the 
stipulated 
discipline. 
If 
the 
supreme 
court 
rejects 
the 
stipulation, a referee shall be appointed pursuant to sub. (4) 
and the matter shall proceed pursuant to SCR chapter 22. A 
stipulation that is rejected has no evidentiary value and is 
without prejudice to the respondent’s defense of the proceeding 
or the board’s prosecution of the complaint.  
No. 97-3544-D 
 
2 
was employed. The parties also stipulated to the rules of 
attorney professional conduct that Attorney Olson violated 
thereby and the discipline to be imposed. The stipulation to the 
discipline is based in part of the facts that Attorney Olson has 
no prior involvement in attorney disciplinary proceedings, was 
forthcoming and cooperative with law enforcement and with the 
Board, and has acknowledged the nature of his conduct and 
sincerely expressed remorse for it.  
¶2 
We have stated on prior occasion that a lawyer’s 
misappropriation of funds belonging to a law firm where that 
lawyer is employed is to be treated no differently than 
misappropriation of funds belonging to the lawyer’s client. 
Disciplinary Proceedings Against Casey, 174 Wis. 2d 341, 496 
N.W.2d 94 (1993). There we said, “In each case, the lawyer 
violates the basic professional duty of trust, not only as 
attorney but also as fiduciary, and a refusal to fulfill that 
responsibility will be disciplined severely.” Id., 342. Under 
the circumstances presented by the parties’ stipulation, we 
determine that the one-year license suspension to which the 
parties stipulated is the appropriate discipline for Attorney 
Olson’s professional misconduct in this matter.  
¶3 
Attorney Olson was admitted to the practice of law in 
Wisconsin in 1985 and currently resides in Kaukauna. He was 
hired by a law firm in New London in April, 1984 and soon 
thereafter agreed to purchase a one-third interest in that law 
firm and thereafter became responsible for managing the law 
firm’s funds.  
No. 97-3544-D 
 
3 
¶4 
In April, 1997, it was discovered that Attorney Olson 
had written law firm checks to pay personal expenses and had 
taken advances and salary payments that had not been authorized 
or matched by payments to the other firm partners. When 
questioned by the police, Attorney Olson acknowledged that 
during the summer of 1996, as a result of family financial 
problems, he wrote four or five unauthorized checks to himself 
and then deleted some of them from the firm’s check register. At 
the time, he estimated the total amount of the unauthorized 
funds he had taken from the firm at $10,000 to $12,000. A review 
of the law firm’s trust account disclosed no evidence that any 
client funds had been taken. Attorney Olson has asserted that 
currently he does not have funds available to make full 
restitution to the law firm. 
¶5 
In August, 1997, Attorney Olson was charged with one 
count of theft, a Class C felony. The criminal complaint had 
identified 13 unauthorized checks totaling $11,250 that had been 
issued to him from the law firm’s operations account between 
June and December, 1996. Upon his conviction of one count of 
felony theft on a no contest plea, the court withheld sentence 
and placed Attorney Olson on ten years’ probation, with six 
months in jail, and ordered him to make restitution in an amount 
to be determined, continue counseling, perform 200 hours of 
community service, and write a letter of apology to the victims. 
At sentencing, the court considered, among other factors, 
Attorney 
Olson’s 
general 
cooperativeness 
and 
“extremely 
No. 97-3544-D 
 
4 
positive” character references, noting that his crime was out of 
character for him.  
¶6 
The parties stipulated that Attorney Olson’s conduct 
in 
this 
matter 
involved 
dishonesty, 
fraud, 
deceit 
or 
misrepresentation, in violation in SCR 20:8.4(c),2 and that his 
conviction constitutes a violation of SCR 20:8.4(b),3 as the 
commission of a criminal act that reflects adversely on a 
lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in 
other respects.  
¶7 
We approve the stipulation of the parties and adopt 
the findings of fact and conclusions of law set forth in it. As 
discipline for Attorney Olson’s theft of law firm funds, we 
suspend his license to practice law for one year. In order for 
his license to be reinstated, Attorney Olson will have to show, 
pursuant to SCR 22.28(4)(k),4 that he has made restitution to the 
                     
2 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;   
3 SCR 20:8.4 provides, in pertinent part: Misconduct 
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:  
 . . .  
(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the 
lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in 
other respects;   
4 SCR 22.28 provides, in pertinent part: Reinstatement. 
No. 97-3544-D 
 
5 
law firm or provide an explanation for his failure or inability 
to do so.  
¶8 
IT IS ORDERED that the license of Jonathan A. Olson to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of one year, 
commencing April 27, 1998.  
¶9 
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Jonathan A. Olson comply 
with the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a 
person whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been 
suspended.  
 
                                                                  
 . . .  
(4) The petition for reinstatement shall show that:  
 . . .  
(k) The petitioner has made restitution or settled all 
claims from persons injured or harmed by petitioner’s misconduct 
or, if the restitution is not complete, petitioner’s explanation 
of the failure or inability to do so.  
 
 
1