Case Title: Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Leslie J. Webster

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wisconsin

Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Date: 1998-04-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
98-0677-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Leslie J. Webster, Attorney at  
Law. 
 
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WEBSTER 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
April 29, 1998 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating: Wilcox, J., did not participate 
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 98-0677-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. 98-0677-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against LESLIE J. WEBSTER, Attorney at 
Law. 
FILED 
 
APR 29, 1998 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney’s 
license 
suspended.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   We review the stipulation, filed pursuant 
to SCR 21.09(3m)1 by the Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility 
(Board) 
and 
Attorney 
Leslie 
J. 
Webster, 
concerning 
Attorney 
Webster’s 
professional 
misconduct 
that 
resulted in his conviction in federal court of one count of 
aiding and abetting the fraudulent concealment of a debtor’s 
property from a bankruptcy trustee. The parties stipulated that 
the appropriate discipline to impose for that professional 
                     
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.  . . .   
No. 98-0677-D 
 
2 
misconduct is the suspension of Attorney Webster’s license to 
practice law for two years and that the suspension be considered 
as having commenced January 21, 1998, the date on which the 
court summarily suspended Attorney Webster’s license pursuant to 
SCR 11.032 in response to his criminal conviction.  
¶2 
We approve the stipulation and adopt the facts and 
conclusions of law set forth in it. We determine that the 
seriousness 
of 
Attorney 
Webster’s 
professional 
misconduct 
warrants the two-year license suspension to which the parties 
had stipulated. Using 
his 
professional 
position, Attorney 
Webster counseled his client to make a fraudulent representation 
in the bankruptcy, which led to the client’s criminal conviction 
and incarceration, and participated actively in a fraud on the 
bankruptcy court. Moreover, as the federal court determined, 
Attorney Webster gave false testimony during his trial regarding 
his participation in the fraud.  
¶3 
Attorney Webster was licensed to practice law in 
Wisconsin in 1979 and practiced in Ellsworth. In 1990, the court 
publicly reprimanded him for undertaking the representation of a 
client in a matter in which he had a conflicting interest by 
                     
2 SCR 11.03 provides: Suspension on conviction of crime.  
(1) Summary suspension. Upon receiving satisfactory proof 
that an attorney has been convicted of a serious crime, the 
supreme court may summarily suspend the attorney, pending final 
disposition of a disciplinary proceeding, whether the conviction 
resulted from a plea of guilty or no contest or from a verdict 
after trial, and regardless of the pendency of an appeal.  
 . . .  
No. 98-0677-D 
 
3 
virtue of his intimate relationship with the client’s wife. 
Disciplinary Proceedings Against Webster, 154 Wis. 2d 110, 452 
N.W.2d 374.  
¶4 
The facts to which the parties stipulated concern 
Attorney Webster’s conduct in representing the owner of a bar 
and the owner’s wife beginning in January, 1991. The owner, who 
also managed the bar, retained Attorney Webster to incorporate 
the business in order to limit his liability. The business was 
incorporated February 1, 1991, and the owner and his wife 
received stock in exchange for the assets of the business and 
became the corporation’s only directors. In the course of that 
matter, Attorney Webster advised the clients to review their 
finances and debts and to consider filing a bankruptcy petition 
to have their debts discharged.  
¶5 
On 
Attorney 
Webster’s 
advice 
and 
with 
his 
representation, the clients filed for bankruptcy March 25, 1991. 
In the schedules and statement of financial affairs specified 
for a debtor not engaged in a business that he drafted, Attorney 
Webster stated that in January, 1991, the owner voluntarily had 
surrendered the bar business to the vendor of a land contract in 
exchange for his release from the unpaid balance on that 
contract. Those papers did not advert, however, to the facts 
that the bar recently had been incorporated and that the owner’s 
assets in it had been conveyed to the corporation and did not 
report any ownership of stock in the business. The papers 
reported ”zero” stock ownership and no real property, and 
Attorney Webster told the bankruptcy trustee that this was a “no 
No. 98-0677-D 
 
4 
asset” case. The bankruptcy court granted the owner and his wife 
a discharge July 16, 1991.  
¶6 
Thereafter, the bar was destroyed by fire, and 
Attorney Webster initially represented the clients in attempting 
to collect insurance proceeds. Having discovered the owner’s 
bankruptcy and the statement in it that the bar had been 
surrendered to the land contract vendor in January, 1991, the 
insurance company investigators questioned whether the client 
was in fact the owner of the bar at the time of the fire. 
Attorney Webster tried to clarify a sworn statement given by the 
client to the insurance company concerning his ownership of the 
bar and asserted that the client had not understood the 
difference between pledging and transferring stock and that what 
the client in fact had done was give the land contract vendor a 
lien on the stock, which did not transfer the stock to him. It 
was determined in subsequent litigation that the client had 
purchased the bar in 1986 and owned it continuously until it was 
destroyed by fire in May, 1992.  
¶7 
The client then was charged with federal bankruptcy 
fraud and was convicted on a guilty plea of one count of making 
a false oath, for which he was sentenced to three months in 
prison. Attorney Webster was charged with one count of aiding 
and abetting the fraudulent concealment of the debtors’ property 
from the bankruptcy trustee and was found guilty by a jury and 
sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment, fined $4000, and placed on 
three years’ supervised release. The district court imposed the 
same sentence after the conviction was affirmed on appeal and 
No. 98-0677-D 
 
5 
remanded for resentencing for the reason that the district court 
had not stated with specificity the factual basis for its 
conclusion that Attorney Webster had given perjured testimony at 
trial, for which the court applied a sentence enhancer. Attorney 
Webster began serving that sentence December 18, 1997.  
¶8 
Attorney Webster and the Board stipulated that the 
conduct for which he was convicted of a federal felony violated 
SCR 20:8.4(b), as it constituted a criminal act that reflects 
adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness and fitness as a 
lawyer. The parties also stipulated that, pursuant to SCR 
11.03(5), the conviction constitutes conclusive evidence of 
Attorney Webster’s guilt of the crime.3 As aggravating factors to 
be considered, the parties stipulated to Attorney Webster’s 
active participation in the fraud, his advice and counsel to the 
client 
that 
contributed 
significantly 
to 
that 
client’s 
participation in the fraud and his conviction and incarceration 
for it, Attorney Webster’s false testimony during the trial, and 
his prior discipline. In mitigation, the parties stipulated to 
the facts that the client’s creditors had not been deprived of 
assets, as the debtor had no equity in the bar, that Attorney 
                     
3 SCR 11.03 provides, in pertinent part: Suspension on 
conviction of crime.  
 . . .  
(5) 
Proof 
of 
guilt. 
In 
any 
disciplinary 
proceeding 
instituted against an attorney based on a conviction, the 
certificate of his or her conviction shall be conclusive 
evidence of his or her guilt of the crime of which he or she was 
convicted.  
No. 98-0677-D 
 
6 
Webster did not benefit personally from the fraudulent conduct, 
that he has assisted charities and civic groups in his 
community, and that he fully cooperated during the Board’s 
investigation of this matter.  
¶9 
We adopt the facts and legal conclusions to which the 
parties 
have 
stipulated 
concerning 
Attorney 
Webster’s 
professional misconduct in this matter. We determine that the 
seriousness of the misconduct, in light of the aggravating and 
mitigating factors set forth in the parties’ stipulation, 
warrants the suspension of Attorney Webster’s license to 
practice law for two years as discipline. We impose that license 
suspension commencing the date on which we summarily suspended 
Attorney Webster’s license following exhaustion of his remedies 
on appeal of his conviction.  
¶10 IT IS ORDERED that the license of Leslie J. Webster to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of two 
years, effective January 21, 1998.  
¶11 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date 
of this order, Leslie J. Webster 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 Leslie J. Webster 
to practice law in Wisconsin shall remain suspended until 
further order of the court.  
¶12 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Leslie J. Webster comply 
with the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a 
No. 98-0677-D 
 
7 
person whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been 
suspended.  
¶13 JON P. WILCOX, J., did not participate.  
 
 
 
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