Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Richard C. Glesner
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 1999AP003351-D
State: Wisconsin
Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Date: February 23, 2000

2000 WI 18 
 
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
99-3351-D 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Richard C. Glesner, Attorney at Law. 
 
Board of Attorneys Professional  
Responsibility,  
 
Complainant, 
 
v. 
Richard C. Glesner,  
 
Respondent.  
 
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST GLESNER 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
February 23, 2000 
Submitted on Briefs: 
      
Oral Argument: 
      
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
      
 
COUNTY: 
      
 
JUDGE: 
      
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
      
 
Dissented: 
      
 
Not Participating:       
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
      
 
2000 WI 18 
 
 
NOTICE 
This opinion is subject to further editing and 
modification.  The final version will appear in 
the bound volume of the official reports. 
 
 
No. 99-3351-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Richard C. Glesner, Attorney at  
Law. 
 
Board of Attorneys Professional  
Responsibility,  
 
          Complainant, 
 
     v. 
 
Richard C. Glesner,  
 
          Respondent.  
FILED 
 
FEB 23, 2000  
 
Cornelia G. Clark 
Acting Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney's 
license 
suspended.  
¶1 
PER CURIAM   We review, pursuant to SCR 21.09(3m),1 the 
stipulation Attorney Richard Glesner entered into with the Board 
                     
1 SCR 21.09(3m) provides: 
(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. 
If 
the 
supreme 
court 
rejects 
the 
stipulation, a referee shall be appointed pursuant to sub. (4) 
and the matter shall proceed pursuant to SCR chapter 22. A 
stipulation that is rejected has no evidentiary value and is 
without prejudice to the respondent's defense of the proceeding 
or the board's prosecution of the complaint. 
No. 
99-3351-D 
 
2 
of Attorneys Professional Responsibility (Board) in which he 
admitted to having engaged in professional misconduct by 
inflating two billings from his law firm to a client and 
inserting false time entries on those billings.  The parties 
stipulated that a 60-day license suspension is appropriate 
discipline for that misconduct.  
¶2 
We accept the parties' stipulation and impose the 60-
day license suspension to which they stipulated.  This is the 
second time Attorney Glesner will have been disciplined for 
professional 
misconduct, 
and 
his 
dishonesty 
and 
misrepresentation in the matter considered in this proceeding is 
sufficiently serious to warrant his removal from the practice of 
law for 60 days.  
¶3 
Attorney Glesner was admitted to practice law in 
Wisconsin in 1966 and practices in Madison.  In June 1993, he 
consented to a public reprimand from the Board for having acted 
on behalf of one client while at the same time representing 
another client with conflicting interests without the latter's 
knowledge or consent, failing to disclose that conflict of 
interest to one of the clients, and giving misleading deposition 
testimony intended to evade discovery of the conflict he had an 
affirmative duty to disclose.   
¶4 
The 
instant 
case 
concerns 
Attorney 
Glesner's 
representation of a company seeking to acquire another company 
in 1996.  A dispute arose between that client and the law firm 
over the billing of approximately $20,000 in the matter, and the 
No. 
99-3351-D 
 
3 
firm agreed to accept approximately $7000 less than what it had 
billed in order to resolve the dispute.   
¶5 
Thereafter, angry with the client over the billing 
dispute and its resolution, Attorney Glesner, who was the firm's 
billing attorney for that client, summarily added $1500 to the 
current balance of a periodic bill he was given in February 1999 
for approval or modification.  The bill then was sent to the 
client without itemization of time entries but with only a 
summary of work done and a total dollar charge.  The client paid 
that bill. 
¶6 
The following month, Attorney Glesner again was given 
a periodic bill for the client, to which he again added $1500 to 
the balance.  The client did not pay that bill but asked for an 
itemization of time entries.  When the firm's billing department 
sent him that request, Attorney Glesner reviewed the time 
entries for the invoice and adjusted several of them upward in 
order to make it appear that the time spent on the matter 
justified the dollar amount of the bill.  The time entries he 
adjusted were not his own but those of several other attorneys 
who had worked on the client's matter.  
¶7 
The parties stipulated that Attorney Glesner's conduct 
in 
this 
matter 
involved 
dishonesty, 
fraud, 
deceit, 
or 
misrepresentation, in violation of SCR 20:8.4(c),2 and violated 
                     
2 SCR 20:8.4(c) provides: 
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:  
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit 
or misrepresentation; 
No. 
99-3351-D 
 
4 
his fiduciary duty, established by case law, to the law firm 
where he was employed, as well as his duty of honesty in his 
professional dealings with his law firm.  In mitigation of the 
seriousness of discipline to be imposed for that misconduct, the 
Board noted the lack of personal financial gain as a motivation. 
 An aggravating factor considered by the Board was Attorney 
Glesner's violation of his duty of honesty in his dealings with 
his law firm and its clients. 
¶8 
We determine that a 60-day license suspension is the 
appropriate 
discipline 
to 
impose 
for 
Attorney 
Glesner's 
misconduct established in this proceeding.  His vengeful and 
dishonest conduct toward a client cannot be dealt with less 
harshly.  We impose that suspension effective the date this 
opinion issues, as the parties had stipulated. 
¶9 
IT IS ORDERED that the license of Richard Glesner to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for 60 days, commencing 
the date of this order. 
¶10 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Richard Glesner comply with 
the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a person 
whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been suspended. 
 
 
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