Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Mario M. Martinez

State: wisconsin

Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Document:

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
98-1496 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings  
Against Mario M. Martinez, Attorney at  
Law. 
 
Board of Attorneys Professional  
Responsibility,  
 
Complainant, 
 
v. 
Mario M. Martinez,  
 
Respondent.  
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST MARTINEZ 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
May 6, 1999 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 
98-1496-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. 98-1496-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Mario M. Martinez, Attorney at 
Law. 
Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility,  
 
 
Complainant, 
 
v.  
Mario M. Martinez,  
 
 
Respondent.  
FILED 
 
MAY 6, 1999 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney’s 
license 
revoked.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   We review the recommendation of the 
referee that the license of Mario M. Martinez to practice law in 
Wisconsin be revoked as discipline for professional misconduct. 
That misconduct consisted of his conversions to his own use of 
some $158,000 of funds held in trust for 27 different clients, 
failing to maintain appropriate trust account records and 
falsely certifying on his State Bar dues statements that he 
maintained those records, failing to deliver funds to third 
persons entitled to them, misstating material facts to a client 
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
2 
and to a third person regarding the status of legal proceedings, 
endorsing settlement checks and signing releases without the 
knowledge, approval or consent of the clients, and making 
misrepresentations 
to the 
Board of 
Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility 
(Board) 
and 
failing 
to 
cooperate 
in 
its 
investigation of his conduct. In addition to the license 
revocation, the referee recommended that Attorney Martinez be 
required to make restitution to the 27 former clients and to 
others who are entitled to a portion of the funds he converted.  
¶2 
We 
determine 
that 
the 
serious 
and 
widespread 
professional misconduct warrants the revocation of Attorney 
Martinez’s license to practice law. By taking for his own use 
funds belonging to his clients or to those who had provided 
health care to his clients in respect to their personal 
injuries, Attorney Martinez has demonstrated that he is not fit 
to be licensed by this court to represent the interests of 
others in our legal system. He has established that he cannot be 
trusted with the property of others obtained in the course of 
representing clients. For reasons set forth below, we do not 
decide the issue of restitution at this time but await further 
information from the Board in respect to it.  
¶3 
Attorney Martinez was admitted to practice law in 
Wisconsin in 1986 and practices in the Milwaukee area. He has 
not been the subject of a prior disciplinary proceeding. By 
order of September 18, 1998, the court temporarily suspended his 
license to practice law pending disposition of this disciplinary 
proceeding, based on the recommendation of the referee, Attorney 
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
3 
Michael Ash, following a hearing on the Board’s temporary 
suspension motion, which Attorney Martinez did not contest. When 
Attorney Martinez did not file an answer to the Board’s amended 
complaint or contest the allegations in it, the referee made 
findings of fact consistent with that complaint.  
¶4 
Between 1991 and mid-1998, Attorney Martinez converted 
$158,000 of client funds being held in trust. Most of those 
funds were proceeds from clients’ personal injury matters, but 
some of them represented money given to Attorney Martinez for 
the express purpose of posting bail for clients who had been 
charged with crimes. In respect to the settlement funds, a 
portion of them belonged to the clients’ health care providers. 
In addition to converting those funds, Attorney Martinez did not 
inform those health care providers of his receipt of monies to 
which they were entitled.  
¶5 
In one instance, Attorney Martinez was given a blank 
check by the mother of a client for the express purpose of 
posting the client’s bail. Attorney Martinez inserted the name 
of one of his associates as the payee of that check, filled in 
$1900 as the amount, added false information concerning the 
purpose of the check, and had it deposited into his business 
account. When the client’s mother demanded reimbursement for the 
amount of that check, Attorney Martinez said he would repay her, 
but he never did. During the Board’s investigation, he submitted 
a copy of a check purportedly payable to the client’s mother in 
the amount of the $1900 plus statutory interest, but that check 
was 
never 
received. 
In 
other 
matters, 
Attorney 
Martinez 
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
4 
misrepresented to a client that his personal injury claims were 
still pending, despite the fact that Attorney Martinez had 
signed the client’s name to two settlement checks and releases 
and converted the settlement funds to his own purposes, failed 
to tell three clients of settlement offers that he accepted 
without their knowledge or consent, and knowingly misrepresented 
to the Board that a client’s personal injury claim had not been 
settled.  
¶6 
On the basis of those facts, the referee concluded 
that Attorney Martinez violated the following provisions of the 
Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys.  
¶7 
SCR 
20:1.2(a) 
-– 
Failure 
to 
inform 
clients 
of 
settlement offers and seek or abide by their decisions regarding 
such offers.  
¶8 
SCR 20:1.15(a) –- Failure to hold client property in 
trust.  
¶9 
SCR 20:1.15(b) –- Failure to deliver to clients or 
third persons funds to which they were entitled.  
¶10 SCR 20:1.15(e) –- Failure to maintain complete records 
of trust account funds.  
¶11 SCR 20:1.15(g) –- Submitting false certifications on 
State Bar dues statements that he maintained required trust 
account records.  
¶12 SCR 20:8.1(a) -– Knowingly making a false statement of 
a material fact in connection with a disciplinary investigation.  
¶13 SCR 20:8.4(c) –- Conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, 
deceit or misrepresentation.  
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
5 
¶14 SCR 21.03(4), SCR 22.07(2) and (3) –- Failure to 
cooperate with the Board’s investigation into allegations of his 
professional misconduct.  
¶15 As discipline for that professional misconduct, the 
referee recommended that the court revoke Attorney Martinez’s 
license to practice law. In addition, the referee recommended 
that he be required to pay the costs of this proceeding and that 
he be ordered to make restitution to the persons named in the 
pleadings and documentary evidence in the proceeding “in the 
amounts determined by the Board (or by judgment of courts of 
competent jurisdiction) to be actually due and owing to such 
persons.”  
¶16 In his report, the referee questioned whether it is 
appropriate that restitution be ordered in this proceeding in 
light of the large number of clients and third persons to whom 
it would have to be made. The referee noted that at the 
disciplinary hearing Attorney Martinez did not agree with the 
amount of funds determined by the Board investigator to have 
been converted, claiming that he had provided additional legal 
services to some of those clients, who had said he could take 
his fees for that representation from their settlement funds. 
The referee also observed that a portion of the converted funds 
listed by the Board would have to be paid to third parties who 
had provided health care to Attorney Martinez’s clients and were 
entitled to be paid from settlement proceeds. In that respect, 
the referee suggested that if his recommendation for restitution 
were followed, it would have to “leave some room for the Board 
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
6 
(or a Court) to determine exactly how much is to be paid and to 
whom,” such that the Board would be required to monitor on a 
continuing basis the amounts owed by Attorney Martinez and paid 
to those entitled to them.  
¶17 We 
adopt 
the 
referee’s 
findings 
of 
fact 
and 
conclusions of law and determine that license revocation is the 
appropriate 
discipline 
to 
impose 
for 
Attorney 
Martinez’s 
professional misconduct. Because the referee’s recommendation 
for restitution envisions and specifies further involvement by 
the Board in determining the exact amount of funds due to each 
of the 27 former clients and to those who provided health care 
services to some of them, we determine that the issue of 
restitution should be held in abeyance and that the Board be 
directed to file a response to the referee’s recommendation on 
restitution. In that response, the Board should set forth what 
actions it would take to make the necessary determinations 
regarding the converted funds, such as conducting further 
investigation, holding further hearings, and contacting known 
health care providers.  
¶18 IT IS ORDERED that the license of Mario M. Martinez to 
practice law in Wisconsin is revoked, effective the date of this 
order.  
¶19 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date 
of this order Mario M. Martinez pay to the Board of Attorneys 
Professional Responsibility the costs of this disciplinary 
proceeding.  
No. 
98-1496-D 
 
7 
¶20 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the issue of restitution is 
held in abeyance pending the response from the Board of 
Attorneys Professional Responsibility as set forth in this 
opinion and until further order of the court.  
¶21 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Mario M. Martinez comply 
with the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a 
person whose license to practice law has been revoked.  
 
 
1