Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Nicholas C. Grapsas
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 1997AP001348-D
State: Wisconsin
Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Date: May 6, 1999

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
97-1348-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Nicholas C. Grapsas, Attorney at  
Law. 
 
Board of Attorneys Professional  
Responsibility,  
 
Complainant-Respondent, 
 
v. 
Nicholas C. Grapsas,  
 
Respondent-Appellant.  
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINIST GRAPSAS 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
May 6, 1999 
Submitted on Briefs: 
March 4, 1999 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
For the respondent-appellant there were briefs by 
Nicholas C. Grapsas, Madison. 
 
 
For the complainant-respondent there was a brief 
by Paul W. Schwarzenbart, counsel, for the Board of Attorneys 
Professional Responsibility, Madison. 
 
No. 
97-1348-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. 97-1348-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against NICHOLAS C. GRAPSAS, Attorney at 
Law. 
Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility, 
 
 
Complainant-Respondent, 
 
v.  
Nicholas C. Grapsas,  
 
 
Respondent-Appellant. 
FILED 
 
MAY 6, 1999 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney 
publicly 
reprimanded; restitution ordered.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   Attorney Nicholas C. Grapsas appealed 
from the referee’s recommendation that he be required to make 
restitution to a client for the fee she paid him to represent 
her in an immigration matter and for the costs she incurred in 
returning to her home country in order to apply for a visa as a 
result of Attorney Grapsas’ unsuccessful attempt to obtain a 
nonimmigrant status for her. Attorney Grapsas did not appeal 
timely from the referee’s initial report concluding that he had 
engaged in professional misconduct in his handling of that 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
2 
client’s matter, for which the referee recommended he be 
publicly 
reprimanded. 
Accordingly, 
the 
issue 
of 
Attorney 
Grapsas’ professional misconduct is before us on review of the 
referee’s report.  
¶2 
We determine that Attorney Grapsas’ failure to provide 
the client proper representation in her legal matter warrants 
the public reprimand recommended by the referee. We determine 
further that Attorney Grapsas should be required to make 
restitution as the referee recommended. Restitution is an 
appropriate component of the discipline we impose on Attorney 
Grapsas, as it was his professional misconduct that prevented 
the client from obtaining the legal outcome she sought while in 
this country and required her to incur travel costs to pursue 
the matter thereafter.  
¶3 
Attorney Grapsas was admitted to practice law in 
Wisconsin in 1970, practices in Madison, and holds himself out 
to the public and advertises as having expertise in the area of 
immigration law. In 1993 the court publicly reprimanded him for 
failing to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in 
representing a client applying for U.S. citizenship, failing to 
keep that client reasonably informed of the status of that 
application 
and 
comply 
with 
her 
reasonable 
requests 
for 
information concerning it, refusing to return her unearned 
retainer when she terminated his representation, misrepresenting 
to 
his 
client, 
to 
the 
Board 
of 
Attorneys 
Professional 
Responsibility 
(Board), 
and 
to 
the 
district 
professional 
responsibility committee that he had acted in the client’s 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
3 
matter, and failing to respond timely to the Board’s requests 
for information concerning the client’s grievance. Disciplinary 
Proceedings Against Grapsas, 174 Wis. 2d 816, 498 N.W.2d 400.  
¶4 
The 
referee in 
the 
instant 
proceeding, Attorney 
Marjorie H. Schuett, made findings of fact and conclusions of 
law based on a partial stipulation of the parties and on 
evidence presented at a disciplinary hearing. Those findings 
concerned Attorney Grapsas’ representation of a client who 
retained him in May 1995 to petition the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service (INS) for a change in her nonimmigrant 
visa status and for authorization to continue employment in this 
country.  
¶5 
The client, a citizen of Taiwan, Republic of China, 
was present in this country on a student visa and was lawfully 
employed at a music school as a piano and voice instructor 
during the one-year period after completing her education. Her 
nonimmigrant visa status was to expire June 21, 1995, following 
which she could remain in this country an additional 60 days to 
prepare for her departure, but in no event could she remain here 
after August 20, 1995. She retained Attorney Grapsas to petition 
INS for a change in her entry visa status from nonimmigrant 
student to nonimmigrant specialty occupation worker. As part of 
that retainer, Attorney Grapsas provided legal services to the 
client’s employer concerning whether it could continue to employ 
her after June 21, 1995. The client paid Attorney Grapsas $505 
for legal services and expenses in representing her and her 
employer in the matter.  
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
4 
¶6 
When she retained Attorney Grapsas, the client asked 
his advice and counsel on the question whether she could 
continue employment with the music school after June 21, 1995. 
In response, Attorney Grapsas advised her and the music school 
that she could do so provided she had filed with INS by that 
date an application for change of status and the application was 
pending.  
¶7 
At the time he gave that advice, Attorney Grapsas was 
aware of INS’s stated position that a nonimmigrant student could 
not lawfully be employed in this country during the 60-day 
period 
allowed 
for 
preparation 
for 
departure 
following 
expiration of the one-year employment period after completion of 
education and that employment during that time would render the 
person “out of status” and ineligible for the status change his 
client sought. Attorney Grapsas contended that there was 
judicial authority to support the position that his client could 
lawfully be employed in this country during the 60-day period 
allowed for preparation for departure. He was aware, however, 
that INS had not acquiesced in the judicial decisions on which 
he relied.  
¶8 
At no time during his representation of the client and 
the music school did Attorney Grapsas explain to either of them 
that it was INS’s stated position that a person in his client’s 
position could not lawfully be employed after expiration of the 
one-year employment period, which in his client’s case was June 
21, 1995. He did not tell the client or the employer that he 
disagreed with INS’s stated position on this issue until he met 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
5 
with the client in April of 1996. Also, Attorney Grapsas never 
explained to either the client or the employer that there was a 
risk that the client’s continued employment could render her 
“out of status” and ineligible for the status change she was 
seeking or that the music school could be subject to sanctions 
for employing an alien without work authorization.  
¶9 
On June 15, 1995, Attorney Grapsas, on behalf of the 
music school, sent an application to the U.S. Department of 
Labor (DOL) requesting that the music school be permitted to 
employ his client in the nonimmigrant status she was seeking. 
That filing was a condition to the client’s petitioning INS for 
a 
change 
to 
that 
nonimmigrant 
status. 
DOL 
returned 
the 
application to Attorney Grapsas June 19, 1995, because it lacked 
information concerning the method by which the prevailing wage 
for the client’s position had been determined. Attorney Grapsas 
faxed an amended application June 30, 1995, and he received 
notification July 7, 1995, that DOL had approved the amended 
application.  
 
¶10 On or about July 10, 1995, Attorney Grapsas mailed the 
client’s petition for change of status to INS, together with a 
$155 check written on his trust account for the filing fee. At 
various times thereafter, he represented to the client that he 
had filed the status change petition with INS by mail in June or 
July 1995. When he had met with the client in June 1995, he told 
her it would take more than a month to get an answer from INS on 
the petition. After waiting about a month, the client telephoned 
him, and he told her that it would probably take a little longer 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
6 
for INS to act on her petition. Several weeks later and several 
times thereafter, the client again contacted Attorney Grapsas 
regarding the status of her petition.  
¶11 Attorney Grapsas knew that INS typically issued a 
notice of receipt of a petition to change nonimmigrant status 
within two or three weeks after its filing, but he did not 
receive a receipt from INS in respect to this client’s status 
change petition. His trust account check for the filing fee sent 
with the petition never was negotiated by INS, and during the 
fall of 1995 he could have checked his trust account records to 
ascertain that fact. In addition, he should have been concerned 
by early fall of 1995 that the petition he had attempted to file 
had not been received by INS. It was not until October 2, 1995, 
that he wrote to INS inquiring into the status of that petition.  
¶12 In January 1996 the client became increasingly worried 
about her petition for status change, and when she contacted INS 
directly, she learned that it had no file under her name. Soon 
thereafter, she learned that INS routinely issued receipts for 
filed petitions seeking a change in entry status and asked 
Attorney Grapsas whether he had received a receipt confirming 
his filing of her petition. Attorney Grapsas responded that he 
would refile the petition.  
¶13 At the beginning of February 1996 Attorney Grapsas 
wrote INS inquiring into the status of his client’s petition and 
on April 29, 1996 refiled the petition. On May 3, 1996, INS 
received that petition and issued a receipt and file number. On 
July 16, 1996, INS approved the music school’s petition to 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
7 
employ the client as a nonimmigrant worker but denied the 
client’s status change petition for the reason that her 
nonimmigrant student status had expired prior to the filing of 
her status change petition and, consequently, she was not 
eligible for a change in status. INS also concluded that the 
client was ineligible for status change because she was “out of 
status” by reason of having been employed unlawfully by the 
music school after June 21, 1995. Following the denial of her 
status change petition, the client returned to Taiwan for the 
sole 
purpose 
of 
reapplying 
for 
a 
nonimmigrant 
specialty 
occupation worker visa, incurring approximately $1000 in travel 
expenses.  
¶14 By letter of May 21, 1996, the Board informed Attorney 
Grapsas that the client had filed a grievance concerning his 
representation and asked that he provide a response within 20 
days. When Attorney Grapsas did not respond, the Board sent him 
a second request by certified mail, but Attorney Grapsas did not 
respond.  
¶15 On the basis of those facts the referee concluded as 
follows. By failing to explain the matter to an extent 
reasonably necessary to permit his client to make informed 
decisions regarding the representation and failing to inform her 
and her employer that there were substantial risks that the 
client’s continued work for the employer after June 21, 1995, 
could result in the denial of the status change petition, as 
well as the imposition of sanctions against the employer, 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
8 
Attorney Grapsas violated SCR 20:1.4(b).1 His failure to act with 
reasonable diligence and promptness in representing the client, 
failure to make reasonable inquiries with INS concerning his 
attempt to file the status change petition in July 1995, and 
failure to refile the petition until April 29, 1996 violated SCR 
20:1.3.2 His failure to respond to two inquiries from the Board 
concerning the client’s grievance violated SCR 21.03(4)3 and 
22.07(3).4  
                     
1  SCR 20:1.4 provides, in pertinent part: Communication 
 . . .  
(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.   
3  
SCR 
21.03 
provides, 
in 
pertinent 
part: 
General 
principles. 
 . . .  
(4) Every attorney shall cooperate with the board and the 
administrator in the investigation, prosecution and disposition 
of grievances and complaints filed with or by the board or 
administrator.  
4  SCR 22.07 provides, in pertinent part: Investigation. 
 . . .  
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
9 
¶16 As discipline for that professional misconduct, the 
referee 
recommended 
that 
Attorney 
Grapsas 
be 
publicly 
reprimanded. In making that recommendation, the referee noted 
the similarities between the misconduct in this matter and some 
of the misconduct for which Attorney Grapsas previously was 
reprimanded. The referee also recommended that Attorney Grapsas 
be required to pay the costs of this disciplinary proceeding.  
¶17 Because the referee’s report did not address the issue 
of restitution to the client for the fee she had paid Attorney 
Grapsas and the costs she incurred in returning to her homeland 
as a result of his representation, we remanded the matter to the 
referee for a recommendation on the issue of restitution to the 
client and, if necessary, for additional findings of fact in 
respect to that issue.  The referee filed a supplemental report 
recommending 
that 
Attorney 
Grapsas 
be 
required 
to 
pay 
restitution to the client in the amount of $1505. It is from 
that recommendation that Attorney Grapsas took the instant 
appeal.  
¶18 Attorney Grapsas contended that the cause of INS’s 
denial of his client’s petition for a status change was not his 
handling of the matter but the inability of the client’s 
                                                                  
(3) 
The 
administrator 
or 
committee 
may 
compel 
the 
respondent to answer questions, furnish documents and present 
any information deemed relevant to the investigation. Failure of 
the respondent to answer questions, furnish documents or present 
relevant information is misconduct. The administrator or a 
committee may compel any other person to produce pertinent 
books, papers and documents under SCR 22.22.  
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
10
employer 
to 
obtain 
DOL 
approval 
of 
the 
labor 
condition 
application prior to the date his client’s one-year practical 
training period expired. He asserted that the requested change 
of status was not denied because the client continued to work 
after the practical training period expired. He based his 
argument on the language set forth in the INS decision that his 
client had been determined “out of status” when the petition for 
status change was filed.  
¶19 Contrary to Attorney Grapsas’ assertions, it was not 
clear from the INS decision that the client’s change of status 
was the result of the expiration of her practical training 
period before her employer could obtain approval of the labor 
condition 
application. 
Attorney 
Grapsas’ 
reliance 
on 
the 
language of the INS decision assumes that his client was 
determined to be “out of status” once her practical training 
period expired, but that ignores the fact that the client was 
entitled to a 60-day period following that expiration in order 
to prepare for departure from this country. Moreover, it was 
during that 60-day period that the client continued to work, 
pursuant to the advice of Attorney Grapsas, who was aware of the 
INS position that doing so was prohibited and would render a 
person “out of status” and ineligible for the status change 
being sought.  
¶20 Further, 
in 
the 
course 
of 
this 
disciplinary 
proceeding, 
Attorney 
Grapsas 
admitted 
facts 
that 
are 
inconsistent with his argument. He initially admitted the 
allegations of the Board’s complaint that the petition for his 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
11
client’s status change was denied by INS for two reasons: 
because her nonimmigrant F-1 status had expired before her 
petition was filed and because she had been employed unlawfully 
after the expiration of her one-year practical training period. 
He later stipulated to those facts.  
¶21 In 
addition, 
there 
was 
expert 
evidence 
at 
the 
disciplinary hearing that it was the client’s continuing to work 
after expiration of her F-1 nonimmigrant status that caused her 
petition for status change to be denied. The expert asserted 
that if Attorney Grapsas had filed the status change petition 
prior to the end of the 60-day period following expiration of 
the practical training period and if his client had stopped 
working as of the last date of that training period, the client 
would have been eligible for the change of status.  
¶22 In respect to his argument regarding the failure to 
obtain DOL approval timely, the Board argued that Attorney 
Grapsas should have obtained the necessary information from the 
client’s employer before he completed the DOL forms he sent to 
the employer for signature. Moreover, when he received the 
completed forms from the employer, he should have supplied any 
omissions before sending them on to DOL. Had he done so, the 
Board contended, there was every likelihood that the client’s 
petition could have been filed by the last day of her practical 
training period.  
¶23 We 
adopt 
the 
referee’s 
findings 
of 
fact 
and 
conclusions of law and determine that a public reprimand is the 
appropriate discipline to impose on Attorney Grapsas for his 
No. 
97-1348-D 
 
12
professional misconduct established in this proceeding. Because 
the amount of financial harm the client suffered is uncontested 
and was the result of Attorney Grapsas’ erroneous advice and his 
failure to act promptly and diligently in the matter, it is 
appropriate that we require him to make restitution to his 
client for the fee she paid him and for her travel costs.  
¶24 IT IS ORDERED that Nicholas C. Grapsas is publicly 
reprimanded as discipline for professional misconduct.  
¶25 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 30 days of the date 
of this order, Nicholas C. Grapsas make restitution in the 
amount of $1505 to the client in the matter considered in this 
proceeding.  
¶26 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that within 60 days of the date 
of this order, Nicholas C. Grapsas 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 Nicholas C. 
Grapsas to practice law in Wisconsin shall be suspended until 
further order of the court.  
 
 
1