Title: Terry George Radtke v. Board of Bar Examiners
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 1999AP000158-BA
State: Wisconsin
Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Date: October 28, 1999

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
99-0158-BA 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of the Bar Admission of: 
 
Terry George Radtke,  
 
Petitioner, 
v. 
Board of Bar Examiners,  
 
Respondent.  
 
BAR ADMISSION OF RADTKE 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
October 28, 1999 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
September 9, 1999 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating: WILCOX, J., did not participate 
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
For the petitioner there were briefs by Daniel W. 
Hildebrand and DeWitt, Ross & Stevens, S.C., Madison and oral 
argument by Daniel W. Hildebrand. 
 
 
For the respondent the cause was argued by Karen 
E. Timberlake, assistant attorney general, with whom on the brief 
was James E. Doyle, attorney general. 
 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
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. 99-0158-BA 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of the Bar Admission of: 
 
Terry George Radtke,  
 
          Petitioner, 
 
     v. 
 
Board of Bar Examiners,  
 
          Respondent.  
FILED 
 
OCT 28, 1999  
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
Review of Board of Bar Examiners decision; decision 
affirmed.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   We review, pursuant to SCR 40.08(5), the 
decision of the Board of Bar Examiners (Board) declining to 
certify that Terry George Radtke satisfied the character and 
fitness requirement for admission to the Wisconsin bar.  That 
determination was based on the Board's findings that Mr. Radtke 
had been discharged from his position as University lecturer in 
1991 
for 
unprofessional 
conduct, 
that 
he 
minimized 
that 
discharge and the underlying conduct on his bar admission 
application, and that he made several false statements at the 
hearing before the Board following its initial determination to 
decline his certification for bar admission. 
¶2 
We determine that the Board properly concluded, on the 
basis of facts that have not been shown to be clearly erroneous, 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
2 
that Mr. Radtke failed to meet his burden under SCR 40.07 to 
establish the requisite moral character and fitness to practice 
law "to assure to a reasonable degree of certainty the integrity 
and the competence of services performed for clients and the 
maintenance of high standards in the administration of justice."1 
                     
1  SCR 40.07 provides:  Proof of qualifications. 
 
The burden of proof shall be on the applicant to 
establish qualifications under SCR 40.02.  Refusal of 
an applicant to furnish available information or to 
answer 
questions 
relating 
to 
the 
applicant's 
qualifications shall be deemed a sufficient basis for 
denial of the certification for admission.   
   
  SCR 40.02 provides, in pertinent part:  
 
A 
person 
who 
meets 
all 
of 
the 
following 
qualifications shall be admitted to practice law in 
this state by order of the supreme court:  
 
(1) Has attained the age of majority under the 
law of his state.  
(2) Satisfies the legal competence requirements 
by diploma privilege (SCR 40.03), bar examination (SCR 
40.04) or proof of practice elsewhere (SCR 40.05).  
(3) Satisfies 
the 
character 
and 
fitness 
requirements set forth in SCR 40.06.  
. . . .  
 
   
  SCR 40.06 provides, in pertinent part: 
 
(1) An 
applicant 
for 
bar 
admission 
shall 
establish good moral character and fitness to practice 
law. The purpose of this requirement is to limit 
admission to those applicants found to have the 
qualities of character and fitness needed to assure to 
a reasonable degree of certainty the integrity and the 
competence of services performed for clients and the 
maintenance of high standards in the administration of 
justice. 
 
(3) An 
applicant 
shall 
establish 
to 
the 
satisfaction of the board that the applicant satisfies 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
3 
 Accordingly, we affirm the Board's decision declining to 
certify him for bar admission.   
¶3 
Prior to his graduation from Marquette University 
School of Law in May 1998, Mr. Radtke was a lecturer in the 
Department of History at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) 
from August 1984 to May 1991.  On his bar admission application, 
the reasons listed for leaving that position were low pay and no 
possibility of promotion.  He also answered in the negative the 
application's question asking if he ever had been suspended, 
reprimanded, 
admonished, 
warned, 
censured, 
or 
otherwise 
disciplined in any position other than a regulated profession. 
¶4 
On the question of Mr. Radtke's employment, the chair 
of the UWM history department reported to the Board that Mr. 
Radtke no longer was employed there, that he had been informed 
that Mr. Radtke would not be rehired, and that Mr. Radtke had 
been terminated by the previous department chair.  The current 
department chair responded in the affirmative to the question 
asking if Mr. Radtke had engaged in fraudulent or deceitful 
conduct, explaining that "[Mr. Radtke’s] scholarly standing was 
compromised by an act of professional indiscretion."   
                                                                  
the requirement set forth in sub. (1). The board shall 
certify to the supreme court the character and fitness 
of qualifying applicants. The board shall decline to 
certify the character and fitness of an applicant who 
knowingly 
makes a 
materially false statement of 
material fact or who fails to disclose a fact 
necessary to correct a misapprehension known by the 
applicant to have arisen in connection with his or her 
application. 
. . . .  
 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
4 
¶5 
After the Board notified him of the employment 
information it had received, Mr. Radtke submitted an amendment 
to his bar admission application in which he reported that in 
the fall of 1990 he had prepared a paper and submitted a version 
of it for publication to a number of journals, including the 
Business History Review.  He explained that the paper was in the 
style of a public lecture and “did not include several key cites 
to secondary sources in the bibliography and paraphrased several 
sources that were not quoted.”  He stated that he “simply forgot 
to include the necessary footnotes in the paper” and asserted 
that the allegation that he had engaged in “professional 
plagiarism” arose from a letter the editors of Business History 
Review sent to the UWM History Department chair about the 
missing citations. 
¶6 
Mr. Radtke stated on the amended application that in a 
conversation in mid-January of 1991, the department chair told 
him he would attempt “damage control” and tell the journal 
editors Mr. Radtke’s version of the matter.  The chair also told 
Mr. Radtke that his employment at UWM probably would be at an 
end.  No further discussion occurred between the chair and Mr. 
Radtke. 
¶7 
Mr. Radtke stated further that he had written a letter 
of apology to the journal editors and that no formal charges of 
professional plagiarism had been filed with any committee at UWM 
or with the American Historical Association -– the chief 
organization having disciplinary authority over him.  That, he 
asserted, was the reason he answered in the negative the 
No. 
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5 
question 
asking 
if 
he 
had 
been 
suspended, 
reprimanded, 
admonished, warned, censured, or otherwise disciplined. 
¶8 
Mr. Radtke also explained that he never had been on a 
tenure track at UWM and consequently had no job security or 
future there.  While he expected that winter 1991 semester to be 
his last, in late spring of that year the chair of Undergraduate 
Affairs offered him a one-year contract as lecturer in the UWM 
history department.  Mr. Radtke stated that he assumed the 
former chair knew of that offer.  However, Mr. Radtke said he 
“stuck with” his earlier decision to commit himself to existing 
commitments and declined the offer, telling the Undergraduate 
Affairs chair that he would no longer teach at UWM.  In addition 
to the “low pay, no possibility of promotion” reasons he had 
given on his original application for having left UWM, Mr. 
Radtke stated that he had concluded that if he were to complete 
matters to which he had committed himself, he would have to 
devote himself to necessary research, writing and travel. 
¶9 
After reviewing Mr. Radtke’s statement on the amended 
application, the former chair of the history department wrote 
the Board that while he might disagree in respect to some minor 
matters, Mr. Radtke’s supplemental statement regarding his 
departure from UWM was “in total an accurate account of the 
circumstances.”  He added that Mr. Radtke had been offered a 
one-year position with the history department because he, the 
former chair, had kept his promise not to disclose the 
plagiarism matter to anyone.  He also asserted that by not 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
6 
accepting that employment offer, Mr. Radtke was adhering to the 
understanding he had with him that he would not return to UWM. 
¶10 When the Board informed him of its intent to decline 
to certify his eligibility for bar admission on the ground of 
character and fitness, Mr. Radtke disputed the Board’s assertion 
that he had ignored on his application the fact that his 
discharge from UWM had been kept secret by his agreement with 
the department chair and that he had been dismissed for cause.  
He requested and received a hearing before the Board. 
¶11 Prior to that hearing, the former department chair 
submitted to the Board an affidavit regarding the communication 
he had received from the journal editor.  The editor was 
extremely upset and said he would inform scholars of Mr. 
Radtke’s violation of professional standards and do all in his 
power 
to 
ensure 
that 
he 
never 
again 
obtained 
academic 
employment.  The chair stated that he did not condone Mr. 
Radtke’s conduct but felt that the editor’s proposed measures 
were extreme and that he prevailed upon him not to pursue his 
intended action by assuring him that Mr. Radtke would have no 
further employment in the UWM history department. 
¶12 The chair stated that when he subsequently discussed 
the matter with him, Mr. Radtke explained that he had felt under 
great 
pressure 
to 
publish 
and 
had 
acted 
in 
haste 
and 
carelessness, an explanation the chair believed had at least 
some plausibility.  When he told Mr. Radtke of his assurance to 
the editor regarding his future employment at UWM, Mr. Radtke 
said that was acceptable.  The chair opined that however 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
7 
reprehensible Mr. Radtke’s conduct, it ought not serve as a 
permanent impediment to his renewed pursuit of a career and 
should be a mistake from which Mr. Radtke could learn and be 
allowed to recover.  He added that he promised Mr. Radtke that 
he would not disclose the matter to any other individual or 
offer any official or public announcement as to the reasons for 
his disassociation from the UWM history department. 
¶13 At the hearing before the Board, Mr. Radtke repeated 
his explanation regarding the submission of the article without 
appropriate footnotes and his discussion with the department 
chair in which he admitted having submitted the wrong version of 
the article.  He stated that he told the chair that he was sorry 
and was willing to accept whatever disciplinary measures the 
journal editor might suggest.  He asserted that the chair had 
said he would do some “damage control” and had told him his 
employment with UWM was in doubt.  He reported that he sent a 
letter of apology to the Business History Review stating that he 
was responsible and willing to accept the blame as well as the 
consequences for his conduct, but he never heard from the 
journal again.  He also never heard about the matter again from 
the department chair, and no formal charges were filed.  He 
stated that the proper version of the paper with the necessary 
footnotes ultimately was published by another journal in 1993. 
¶14 Mr. Radtke told the Board that the factors leading to 
his decision to sever ties with UWM included the facts that he 
had received a contract to write a history of a veteran’s 
organization from another state, which would involve travel and 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
8 
research time, and that he had yet to complete his doctoral 
dissertation.  He also explained that he had been an employee at 
will at UWM from 1984 to 1991 under a series of one-year 
contracts and was part-time from 1987 to 1991.  Accordingly, he 
said, he regarded his employment as a dead-end job, one he kept 
in order to have an academic base and because he enjoyed 
teaching.  He said it was for those reasons that he turned down 
the one-year contract offered to him in the spring of 1991.  Mr. 
Radtke reported that he received his doctorate in 1993 and wrote 
a book that year, which was published by a commercial publisher. 
¶15 Mr. Radtke told the Board that there was no secret 
agreement between himself and the department chair and that he 
believed the chair was mistaken.  He said that the chair had 
told him he was sorry that the matter had occurred and that he 
did not want to impede Mr. Radtke’s career.  In respect to the 
alleged plagiarism, Mr. Radtke asserted that he had not provided 
source citations to materials quoted in his paper and to various 
facts, individuals, and chapters in a political movement or 
political campaign, most of which he had taken from secondary 
articles.  He acknowledged that he should have mentioned those 
articles as sources. 
¶16 After the hearing, the Board obtained from the 
Business History Review a copy of the paper Mr. Radtke had 
submitted for publication, a copy of the letter the journal 
editor wrote to Mr. Radtke, and a copy of Mr. Radtke’s response. 
 The editor’s letter enclosed a report that described the 
plagiarism as a copying of source text of two publications more 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
9 
or less verbatim and called the plagiarism generally “crude and 
blatant.”  At the hearing, Mr. Radtke had stated that he 
understood why the editors were concerned but that he did not 
design the article to slip it through, adding that if that had 
been his intent, the article would have been more sophisticated, 
and word-for-word text would not have been used.  In his 
response to the journal editor, he stated that he understood the 
serious nature of his mistakes regarding professional standards 
and conduct, took full responsibility for his actions, and was 
willing to accept any penalties the editorial board felt were 
appropriate.  
¶17 Following receipt of that additional material, Board 
staff reported in a memorandum to the Board that Mr. Radtke’s 
descriptions of his paper were at variance with the evidence of 
the paper itself and with his letter to the editor.  The memo 
concluded that Mr. Radtke deliberately had copied a substantial 
portion -- more than half -- of his article from other people’s 
work, presented it as his own, and lied to the Board.   
¶18 In this review, Mr. Radtke contended that several of 
the Board's findings of fact and the inferences it drew from the 
evidence are clearly erroneous, that the Board impermissibly 
considered materials it obtained following his hearing before 
the Board, and that the Board failed to consider each of the 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
10
factors set forth in its rule, BA 6.03,2 to be considered in 
respect to a bar admission applicant's prior conduct.  We find 
insufficient merit to any of those contentions to support Mr. 
Radtke's assertion that he has met his burden to establish the 
requisite character and fitness for bar admission. 
¶19 There is no merit to Mr. Radtke's contention that it 
was clear error for the Board to find that he had been 
discharged from his position as university lecturer for cause, 
namely, unprofessional conduct consisting of plagiarism in a 
professional article.  The sworn statement of the former 
department chair and the information provided by the current 
chair constitute sufficient evidence to support the Board's 
finding concerning the circumstances surrounding and the reasons 
for Mr. Radtke's departure from UWM.  Notwithstanding his 
insistence that he had not been given formal notice of 
                     
2  BA 6.03 provides: Use of Information.  The Board will 
determine whether the present character and fitness of an 
applicant qualifies the applicant for admission.  In making this 
determination 
through 
the 
processes 
described 
above, 
the 
following factors should be considered in assigning weight and 
significance to prior conduct: 
(a)  the applicant's age at the time of the conduct 
(b)  the recency of the conduct 
(c)  the reliability of the information concerning the 
conduct 
(d)  the seriousness of the conduct 
(e)  the mitigating or aggravating circumstances 
(f)  the evidence of rehabilitation 
(g)  the applicant's candor in the admissions process 
(h)  the materiality of any omissions or 
misrepresentations 
(i)  the number of incidents revealing deficiencies  
 
 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
11
discharge, it is clear that his employment as lecturer with the 
university was terminated, as it would not extend beyond the 
current semester, and that the termination was the direct result 
of the plagiarism incident.   
¶20 Mr. Radtke's statement on his admission application of 
the reasons for having left employment was misleading, for it  
presented the matter as a decision he alone made and that he had 
done so voluntarily.  Further, when asked to supplement his 
response, 
Mr. 
Radtke 
reported 
that 
when 
offered 
future 
employment in the history department, he declined for the reason 
that he already had decided to leave as a result of low pay and 
lack of job security.  He made no mention of the former 
department chair's decision to bring his employment to an end in 
order to prevent the journal editor from taking further action 
against him in response to the plagiarism.  
¶21 Thus, Mr. Radtke's statement on his bar admission 
application regarding the cause of his departure from university 
employment omitted a material fact, and the Board properly found 
that 
Mr. 
Radtke 
thereby 
minimized 
his 
culpability 
and 
responsibility for the termination.  His assertion in this 
review that the evidence established merely that he and the 
department chair mutually agreed that he would not continue his 
employment is deceptive, as it suggests that Mr. Radtke had an 
equal voice in the agreement. 
¶22 Also without merit is Mr. Radtke's contention that he 
did not commit plagiarism but "simply forgot to include the 
necessary 
footnotes" 
in 
the 
article 
he 
submitted 
for 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
12
publication.  He acknowledged that he had copied text from two 
scholarly articles nearly verbatim, and his assertion that he 
merely forgot to include footnotes disclosing the sources from 
which that text had been taken minimized the seriousness of his 
conduct as assessed by the journal editor and by his department 
chair.  The journal editor's report on the "plagiarism" said, in 
part: 
 
In all cases the plagiarism consists of copying 
the source text more or less verbatim, occasionally 
shortening 
it 
or 
omitting 
parts 
or 
reordering 
sentences and paragraphs.  In essence Radtke has 
simply copied rather more than half of his paper from 
other people’s work and presented it as his own. 
. . . .   
The plagiarism is generally crude and blatant.  
At times efforts have been made to disguise it or to 
make material appear more directly relevant to the 
region and time period Radtke purports to be studying. 
. . . .  
The above evidence makes it abundantly clear that 
this is an extremely serious case of plagiarism, 
carried 
out 
deliberately 
and 
with 
intent 
to 
deceive. . . . 
 
¶23 The evidence supports the Board's determination that 
Mr. Radtke minimized his conduct by characterizing what he did 
as "paraphras[ing] several sources that were not quoted" and 
having "simply forgot[ten] to include the necessary footnotes" 
and 
"several 
key 
cites 
to 
secondary 
sources 
in 
the 
bibliography." 
The 
argument 
that 
if 
he 
had 
intended 
to 
plagiarize, he would not have set forth text from scholarly 
journals verbatim, thereby running the risk of detection by any 
person knowledgeable in the field, is disingenuous. 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
13
¶24 While there is some merit to Mr. Radtke's contention 
that, contrary to the Board's findings, he never said at the 
hearing that he had prepared two different versions of the 
article -- one with and one without footnotes -- and submitted 
for 
publication 
the 
version 
without 
the 
footnotes, 
his 
statements to the Board at the hearing were, at best, ambiguous. 
 When asked whether he was suggesting that it was just an error 
— that he took the wrong version of the article to send to the 
publishers, he responded, " . . . I made a number of drafts, as 
we all do when working on various publications or various 
projects, and I was working extensively on the non-citation 
draft, the wrong draft as it were, and I put all [the material 
from two sources] in there.  . . .  It basically was an error.  
 . . .  I simply sent in the wrong paper . . . "  It is unclear 
from his statements at the hearing whether one of the versions 
of the paper contained no footnotes or omitted only the 
footnotes to the text he had taken from the two scholarly 
journals.  In any event, Mr. Radtke conceded in the course of 
this review that in his letter of apology to the journal editor 
he incorrectly stated that he had sent the wrong version of the 
paper.   
¶25 The final fact Mr. Radtke contended was clearly 
erroneous concerns his statement at the hearing that the alleged 
plagiarism 
consisted 
of 
information 
taken 
from 
secondary 
sources.  The Board found that statement to have been false for 
the reason that the material he had taken came from two articles 
published in professional history journals, not from the news 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
14
and entertainment periodicals Mr. Radtke referred to in his 
statements to the Board.  Moreover, while he made reference to 
two unnamed publications in connection with the omission of 
footnotes in the paper he submitted, his characterization of the 
kind of sources made no mention of professional history 
journals. 
¶26 Mr. Radtke has failed to establish that any of the 
Board's findings is clearly erroneous.  Each of the foregoing 
findings of fact is adequately supported by the credible 
evidence and the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from 
it.  
¶27 Mr. Radtke next argued that the Board violated his 
right of due process of law by obtaining information concerning 
his university employment and his plagiarism after holding a 
hearing and then using that information to his detriment.  It 
was his contention that if those materials had been available to 
him prior to the hearing, he could have examined them, refreshed 
his recollection, and given an appropriate explanation for them. 
 In support of that contention, Mr. Radtke relied on the court's 
decision in Application of Childs, 101 Wis. 2d 159, 303 N.W.2d 
663 (1981), in which the court addressed a bar admission 
applicant's due process right in the bar admission process.  
¶28 That reliance is misplaced.  The court held in Childs 
only that the minimum required by the due process clause is that 
the bar admission applicant be apprised of the specific grounds 
for the Board's decision not to certify satisfaction of the bar 
admission requirements and have an opportunity to respond to 
No. 
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15
that decision.  Id., 165.  Here, as the Board asserted, it was 
not until the hearing that the Board learned of Mr. Radtke's 
apparent position that he had prepared two separate drafts of 
the article, and it was proper to conduct further investigation 
of 
the 
underlying 
circumstances 
concerning 
that 
issue.  
Moreover, the Board contended, the information it obtained 
following the hearing was not unavailable to Mr. Radtke, as he 
could have obtained it from the same source from which the Board 
did.   
¶29 Nonetheless, better practice would have been for the 
Board to have notified Mr. Radtke of the additional material, 
even though it had been adverted to in the course of the 
application and hearing process, and of its intent to rely on 
that material in reaching a determination on the question of his 
character and fitness for bar admission.  A full examination of 
the matter would have included the opportunity for Mr. Radtke to 
respond 
to 
that 
material, 
if 
only 
in 
respect 
to 
its 
authenticity.   
¶30 Mr. Radtke's final argument in this review asserted 
that the Board erred in concluding that his unprofessional 
conduct and incomplete and untruthful disclosures were relevant 
to his character and fitness because it failed to take into 
consideration each of the nine factors listed in BA 6.03.  We 
find no merit to that argument.  First, Mr. Radtke incorrectly 
stated that the Board considered only two factors — the 
seriousness of his conduct and his candor in the admission 
process.  In fact, the Board also explicitly considered the lack 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
16
of evidence of his rehabilitation and the materiality of his 
omissions in the admission process.  Second, we rejected the 
same argument in Saganski v. Board of Bar Examiners, 226 Wis. 2d 
678, 595 N.W.2d 631 (1999), holding that it is sufficient that 
the Board consider those BA 6.03 factors that are applicable to 
the conduct of the applicant. 
¶31 Because the Board's findings have not been shown to be 
clearly erroneous or its conclusion based on those findings to 
be improper, we affirm the Board's determination declining to 
certify Mr. Radtke's character and fitness for bar admission.  
We consider, then, the effect Mr. Radtke's conduct in the 
plagiarism incident and in the bar admission application process 
has on his eligibility to reapply for bar admission.  In that 
regard, we take into account Mr. Radtke's professional record 
during the eight years following the plagiarism incident.  Mr. 
Radtke pointed out that he admitted his mistake in the 
submission of his article for publication and took full 
responsibility for it, subsequently published the article with 
proper footnotes, published a book, completed his doctoral 
thesis and obtained his doctorate, and earned a law degree.  He 
did all of that without any allegation of questionable conduct. 
¶32 While Mr. Radtke's recent characterizations of the 
plagiarism incident and the impact it had on his professional 
employment cause great concern, as they were made to the court's 
board charged with the responsibility of investigating and 
reporting on the character and fitness of bar admission 
applicants, we determine that Mr. Radtke should be permitted to 
No. 
99-0158-BA 
 
17
reapply for bar admission.  As we did in Matter of Bar Admission 
of Gaylord, 155 Wis. 2d 816, 456 N.W.2d 590 (1990), and in 
Saganski, supra, we determine that a one-year period is the 
appropriate time for him to wait before reapplying and that, as 
in Saganski, the period commence the date of the Board's adverse 
decision, here, December 21, 1998.  The time for Mr. Radtke's 
actual admission to the bar specified in the bar admission rules 
will be extended for the period of time reasonably necessary to 
accommodate his reapplication, should he reapply.   
By the Court.—The decision of the Board of Bar Examiners is 
affirmed.   
¶33 JON P. WILCOX, J., did not participate.  
 
 
1