Case Title: Terrence J. Woods v.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 1998AP000933-D

State: wisconsin

Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Date: 1998-09-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
98-0933-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary 
Proceedings Against 
Terrence J. Woods,  
Attorney at Law. 
 
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WOODS 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
September 15, 1998 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 
98-0933-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. 98-0933-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against TERRENCE J. WOODS, Attorney at 
Law. 
FILED 
 
SEP 15, 1998 
 
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 Attorney Terrence J. Woods to 
practice law be suspended for 90 days as discipline for 
professional misconduct, that suspension to run concurrently 
with the 60-day license suspension the court imposed on Attorney 
Woods in a prior disciplinary proceeding. Because that period of 
suspension already has expired and Attorney Woods’ license has 
been reinstated, a concurrent license suspension for the 
misconduct established in the instant proceeding no longer is 
feasible. Consequently, the license suspension we impose for 
that 
misconduct 
is 
prospective. 
In 
the 
course 
of 
this 
proceeding, 
Attorney 
Woods 
and 
the 
Board 
of 
Attorneys 
Professional Responsibility (Board) entered into a stipulation 
agreeing, in part, to a 90-day license suspension consecutive to 
the prior 60-day suspension or, if the court’s disposition of 
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
2 
this proceeding occurred after the expiration of the earlier 
suspension, to a prospective 90-day suspension.  
¶2 
We 
determine 
that 
Attorney 
Woods’ 
misconduct 
established in this proceeding, which consisted of his failure 
to provide adequate representation to a client in an employment 
matter, investigate facts related to that client’s claim and 
file a complaint or take other steps to further that client’s 
interests and respond to his reasonable requests for information 
concerning the matter, warrants a 60-day suspension of Attorney 
Woods’ license to practice law. That is the minimum period for 
which 
we 
impose 
a 
license 
suspension 
as 
discipline 
for 
professional misconduct.  
¶3 
Attorney Woods has been disciplined for professional 
misconduct on three prior occasions. In March of 1993 he 
consented to a public reprimand from the Board for failing to 
pursue properly the representation of two clients in criminal 
matters, including his failure to file a notice of intent to 
seek postconviction relief or otherwise pursue an appeal and not 
responding to numerous requests for information from the client 
and from the State Public Defender, who had appointed him to 
those matters. In January, 1996, he consented to a private 
reprimand from the Board for having agreed to a settlement of a 
client’s case on the record without first having discussed the 
proposed settlement terms with the client and obtaining her 
consent to accept them, as well as for failing to provide that 
client information in the matter and return documents and 
property to her.  
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
3 
¶4 
Most recently, the court suspended Attorney Woods’ 
license to practice law for 60 days, commencing April 7, 1998, 
as discipline for failure to keep a client reasonably informed 
of the status of a matter and promptly comply with reasonable 
requests for information from that client and surrender property 
to which the client was entitled, failing to act with reasonable 
diligence and comply promptly with a client’s requests for 
information in another matter and initially not cooperating with 
the Board’s investigation and making a misrepresentation in a 
disclosure to the Board, and failing to act with reasonable 
diligence on another client’s behalf and cooperate with the 
Board’s investigation in that matter. Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Woods, 216 Wis. 2d 137, 573 N.W.2d 838 (1998).  
¶5 
Attorney Woods was admitted to practice law in 
Wisconsin in 1965 and practices in Oconto Falls. In the instant 
proceeding, he consented to the entry of a default judgment on 
the Board’s complaint, and the referee, the Hon. Timothy L. 
Vocke, reserve judge, made findings of fact and conclusions of 
law accordingly.  
¶6 
Attorney Woods was retained by a client in December, 
1994 to represent him in disputes with his current employer and 
a former employer that arose from his National Guard unit’s 
having been called into active service. At their initial 
conference, the client and Attorney Woods discussed the possible 
application of the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment 
Rights Act to those disputes. There was no retainer agreement, 
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
4 
Attorney Woods never billed the client, and the client never 
paid him a fee.  
¶7 
Starting in the spring of 1995, the client made 
frequent attempts to contact Attorney Woods to learn the status 
of his matters but, except for one occasion when Mr. Woods 
personally answered the office telephone, was never able to 
reach him. During that one contact, Attorney Woods told the 
client that he had written to the former employer and was 
waiting for a reply.  
¶8 
In the fall of 1995, after hearing nothing further 
from Attorney Woods, the client decided to negotiate with his 
current employer himself regarding restoration of his seniority. 
In November, 1995, the employer made a settlement offer giving 
him additional seniority and vacation time in exchange for his 
discontinuing all claims against the employer. When the client 
conferred with him about the offer, Attorney Woods told him not 
to accept it, as they could do better in court. After the client 
rejected the settlement offer, the employer terminated his 
employment, ostensibly for reasons unrelated to the rejected 
settlement offer. The Veterans Employment and Training Service 
notified the client in December, 1995, that it had not received 
any information from him to alter its initial determination of 
his ineligibility for coverage under USERRA in respect to his 
most recent employer and, as it had been contacted by someone 
from Attorney Woods’ office, who was identified only by her 
first name, it would no longer handle the case because the 
client had elected to retain private legal counsel.  
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
5 
¶9 
The client telephoned Attorney Woods’ office five 
times in the second half of January, 1996 to obtain papers in 
his files that would show entitlement to USERRA benefits, but he 
received no papers from Attorney Woods. He renewed his efforts 
in May, 1996 and in late August went personally to Attorney 
Woods’ office and obtained all of his papers. Among them was a 
draft of a complaint stating a claim under USERRA against the 
most recent employer. Attorney Woods told the client that he had 
intended to file that complaint soon. Three weeks later Attorney 
Woods assured the client he would file the complaint immediately 
and would “fight to the hilt.” As of February 7, 1997, when the 
client filed a grievance with the Board, Attorney Woods had 
filed nothing on the client’s behalf.  
¶10 Attorney Woods’ entire file in the client’s matter 
disclosed no evidence that he or anyone in his office other than 
the person who made the single contact with the Veterans 
Employment and Training Service ever had attempted to contact 
anyone regarding the client’s case, and there was no evidence 
that any correspondence was generated from the office during the 
entire course of the representation. In addition, there was no 
evidence that Attorney Woods ever requested the client to pay a 
filing fee, and the client asserted that he never did.  
¶11 The referee concluded, as the  Board had alleged, that 
Attorney Woods failed to promptly comply with this client’s 
reasonable requests for information and provide his client 
information and a reasoned analysis concerning the settlement 
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
6 
offer from his employer, in violation of SCR 20:1.4(a) and (b).1 
The referee concluded further that Attorney Woods failed to act 
with reasonable diligence in representing the client, in 
violation of SCR 20:1.3,2 as demonstrated by his failure to 
investigate the facts of the client’s claims from the time of 
his retention in December, 1994 up to the filing of the Board’s 
grievance in February, 1997 and to file the complaint he had 
drafted or take other steps to further the client’s interests.  
¶12 In determining the discipline to recommend for that 
professional misconduct, the referee, who had served as referee 
in the immediately prior proceeding against Attorney Woods, 
considered in mitigation of its seriousness that there was no 
apparent dishonest or selfish motive on Attorney Woods’ part and 
that he neither requested nor received any payment from the 
client. In aggravation of that misconduct, the referee took into 
account Attorney Woods’ prior discipline, the fact that the two 
reprimands had been imposed in a relatively short period of 
time, and that in the instant matter Attorney Woods engaged in 
                     
1 SCR 20:1.4 provides: Communication 
(a) A lawyer shall keep a client reasonably informed about 
the status of a matter and promptly comply with reasonable 
requests for information.  
(b) A lawyer shall explain a matter to the extent 
reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed 
decisions regarding the representation.  
2 SCR 20:1.3 provides: Diligence 
A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness 
in representing a client.  
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
7 
multiple acts of misconduct. Noting the similarity between the 
misconduct in the instant proceeding and that in the immediately 
prior proceeding, the referee observed a pattern to Attorney 
Woods’ misconduct, namely, when contacted by clients, he led 
them to believe he would represent them but then failed to keep 
in contact with them and provide them any legal services.  
¶13 Rejecting the consecutive 90-day license suspension to 
which the parties stipulated, the referee recommended a 90-day 
license suspension to run concurrently with the prior 60-day 
suspension that commenced April 7, 1998. In making that 
recommendation, the referee observed that had he considered the 
misconduct established in the instant proceeding together with 
the three matters he addressed in the prior proceeding, he would 
not have recommended what would have amounted to a 150-day 
suspension.  
¶14 As indicated above, the concurrent license suspension 
recommended by the referee is no longer an option. Also, because 
Attorney Woods was reinstated to the practice of law following 
completion of the 60-day license suspension, we are not in a 
position to impose retroactively a suspension consecutive to the 
prior suspension. We determine, then, that the seriousness of 
Attorney 
Woods’ misconduct 
established 
in 
this 
proceeding 
warrants a prospective 60-day license suspension.  
¶15 IT IS ORDERED that the license of Terrence J. Woods to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of 60 days, 
effective October 26, 1998.  
No. 
98-0933-D 
 
8 
¶16 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date 
of this order, Terrence J. Woods 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 Terrence J. Woods 
to practice law in Wisconsin shall remain suspended until 
further order of the court.  
¶17 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Terrence J. Woods comply 
with the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a 
person whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been 
suspended.  
¶18 DAVID T. PROSSER, J., did not participate.  
 
 
1