Title: Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility v. Robin A. Nelson
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 1998AP003368-D
State: Wisconsin
Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Date: April 27, 1999

SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
Case No.: 
98-3368 
 
 
 
Complete Title 
of Case: 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Robin A. Nelson, Attorney at Law. 
 
Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility,  
 
Complainant, 
 
v. 
Robin A. Nelson,  
 
Respondent.  
 
DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST NELSON 
 
 
Opinion Filed: 
April 27, 1999 
Submitted on Briefs: 
 
Oral Argument: 
 
 
 
Source of APPEAL 
 
COURT: 
 
 
COUNTY: 
 
 
JUDGE: 
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
Concurred: 
 
 
Dissented: 
 
 
Not Participating:  
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
 
No. 
98-3368-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. 98-3368-D 
 
STATE OF WISCONSIN               :        
        
 
 
 
 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings 
Against Robin A. Nelson, Attorney at Law. 
Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility,  
 
 
Complainant,  
 
v.  
Robin A. Nelson,  
 
 
Respondent.  
FILED 
 
APR 27, 1999 
 
Marilyn L. Graves 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
ATTORNEY 
disciplinary 
proceeding.  Attorney’s 
license 
suspended. 
¶1 
PER 
CURIAM   We 
review the 
stipulation 
filed by 
Attorney Robin A. Nelson and the Board of Attorneys Professional 
Responsibility (Board) pursuant to SCR 21.09(3m)1 setting forth 
                     
1 SCR 21.09 provides, in pertinent part: Procedure. 
 . . .  
No. 
98-3368-D 
 
2 
findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning Attorney 
Nelson’s professional misconduct in dealing with funds of 
clients held in her law firm’s trust account and fees belonging 
to the firm. The parties also stipulated to a two-year 
suspension of Attorney Nelson’s license to practice law as 
discipline for that misconduct.  
¶2 
We approve the stipulation and determine that the 
seriousness 
of 
Attorney 
Nelson’s 
misconduct 
warrants 
the 
suspension of her license to practice law for two years. 
Attorney Nelson’s repeated withdrawals of client funds for her 
own use, the steps she took to conceal her conduct from the law 
firm where she was employed, and her retention and use of fees 
to which the firm was entitled constitute an egregious breach of 
her fiduciary duty not only to her firm’s clients but also to 
the lawyers with whom she was engaged in the practice of law. In 
addition to that suspension, we impose the condition of 
reinstatement of her license to which the parties stipulated -- 
that Attorney Nelson provide evidence of treatment for and 
recovery from her gambling disorder.  
                                                                  
(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. 
98-3368-D 
 
3 
¶3 
Attorney Nelson, who has not been the subject of a 
prior disciplinary proceeding, was admitted to the practice of 
law in Wisconsin in 1989 and joined a law firm with offices in 
Menomonie in 1993. After becoming a shareholder in that firm at 
the beginning of 1998, she assumed primary responsibility for 
supervising and balancing the firm’s Menomonie office trust 
account, which was separate from the trust account the firm 
maintained for each of its other two locations.  
¶4 
In early February 1998 the trust account held $1580 in 
proceeds of an Internal Revenue Service refund check in a 
client’s matter. On February 10, 1998, Attorney Nelson wrote to 
herself and cashed a trust account check in the amount of $1580, 
showing on the check stub that it was a distribution of the IRS 
refund. More than three months later, Attorney Nelson sent the 
client 
her 
personal 
check 
in 
the 
amount 
of 
$946.83, 
misrepresenting in a cover letter that she wrote the check on 
her personal account because the law firm was reordering trust 
account checks, and she did not want the client to have to wait 
for her share of the refund. Attorney Nelson personally paid the 
balance of the IRS check to the attorney for the adverse party 
in the client’s matter.  
¶5 
During the first two weeks of March 1998, Attorney 
Nelson wrote to herself and cashed two trust account checks, 
each in the amount of $3500, misrepresenting on the check stubs 
that they were written to her law firm as fees related to 
another client. At her direction, Attorney Nelson’s legal 
assistant subsequently marked one of the check stubs “void.”  
No. 
98-3368-D 
 
4 
¶6 
On March 16, 1998, $50,000 was deposited in the trust 
account for a client, and a check in the amount of $44,700 was 
written to and negotiated by the client. Another check was 
written to the firm for the balance -- $5300 -- for that 
client’s costs and fees. That check was delivered to the 
receptionist at one of the firm’s other offices but before it 
was given to the firm’s bookkeeper, Attorney Nelson instructed 
the receptionist to destroy it. Attorney Nelson then wrote a 
trust account check to herself in the amount of $5300, with the 
check stub showing that the check was voided. On April 14, 1998, 
Attorney Nelson gave the bookkeeper her personal check payable 
to the law firm in the amount of $5300 and labeled as fees for 
that client.  
¶7 
Attorney Nelson made entries on trust account check 
stubs indicating that $12,000 was deposited on behalf of a 
client March 28, 1998, when in fact there had been no such 
deposit. On that same date, Attorney Nelson wrote a trust 
account check for $6000 payable to herself, with the check stub 
showing that the check had been made payable to the client. On 
April 20, 1998, she replaced the funds by making a $6000 cash 
deposit to the trust account.  
¶8 
When the law firm discovered discrepancies in its 
trust account records toward the end of May, 1998, Attorney 
Nelson acknowledged that she had “borrowed” $5300 and $6000, 
which she had since repaid, and that she also had taken two 
$3500 withdrawals. In addition to withdrawing trust account 
funds, she reported five instances in which she took a total of 
No. 
98-3368-D 
 
5 
approximately $2300 of legal fees that belonged to the law firm 
and concealed having done so by altering the firm’s billing 
records. Attorney Nelson then repaid the firm in full for the 
trust account funds and fees she had taken and voluntarily 
resigned from the law firm.  
¶9 
The 
parties 
stipulated 
that 
the 
above 
conduct 
constituted Attorney Nelson’s dishonesty, fraud, deceit or 
misrepresentation, in violation of SCR 20:8.4(c),2 failure to 
hold in trust, separate from her own property, funds belonging 
to clients, in violation of SCR 20:1.15(a), and failure to 
maintain trust account records as required by SCR 20:1.15(e).3 In 
                     
2 SCR 20:8.4 provides, in pertinent part: Misconduct 
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:  
 . . .  
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit 
or misrepresentation;  
3  At the time relevant here, SCR 20:1.15 provided, in 
pertinent part: Safekeeping property 
(a) A lawyer shall hold in trust, separate from the 
lawyer’s own property, that property of clients or third persons 
that is in the lawyer’s possession in connection with a 
representation. All funds of clients paid to a lawyer or law 
firm shall be deposited in one or more identifiable trust 
accounts as provided in paragraph (c) maintained in a bank, 
trust company, credit union or savings and loan association 
authorized to do business and located in Wisconsin, which 
account shall be clearly designated as “Client’s Account” or 
“Trust Account” or words of similar import, and no funds 
belonging to the lawyer or law firm except funds reasonably 
sufficient to pay account service charges may be deposited in 
such an account.  . . .  
 . . .  
No. 
98-3368-D 
 
6 
agreeing that the appropriate discipline for Attorney Nelson’s 
misconduct is a two-year license suspension, the parties noted 
that Attorney Nelson reported her misconduct to the Board, 
cooperated fully in its investigation into the matter, and paid 
the law firm all of the money to which it was entitled.  
¶10 In addition to the two-year license suspension, the 
parties stipulated that as a condition of reinstatement Attorney 
Nelson be required to produce evidence from a competent 
addictionologist that her gambling disorder is under control and 
that she is in compliance with whatever conditions are necessary 
to enable her to maintain her recovery. That condition is in 
response to Attorney Nelson’s statement in her report to the 
Board that there 
was 
a 
gambling 
issue involved in her 
misconduct. After agreeing to and undergoing a comprehensive 
                                                                  
(e) Complete records of trust account funds and other trust 
property shall be kept by the lawyer and shall be preserved for 
a period of at least six years after termination of the 
representation. Complete records shall include: (i) a cash 
receipts journal, listing the sources and date of each receipt, 
(ii) a disbursements journal, listing the date and payee of each 
disbursement, with all disbursements being paid by check, (iii) 
a subsidiary ledger containing a separate page for each person 
or company for whom funds have been received in trust, showing 
the date and amount of each receipt, the date and amount of each 
disbursement, and any unexpended balance, (iv) a monthly 
schedule of the subsidiary ledger, indicating the balance of 
each client’s account at the end of each month, (v) a 
determination of the cash balance (checkbook balance) at the end 
of 
each 
month, 
taken 
from 
the 
cash 
receipts 
and 
cash 
disbursement journals and a reconciliation of the cash balance 
(checkbook balance) with the balance indicated in the bank 
statement, and (vi) monthly statements, including canceled 
checks, vouchers or share drafts, and duplicate deposit slips. 
 . . .  
No. 
98-3368-D 
 
7 
evaluative psychological assessment by a medical expert the 
Board had suggested, she was diagnosed with pathological 
gambling -- an impulse control disorder. While neither she nor 
the Board asserted that the gambling disorder in any way 
constituted a defense to or mitigation of her professional 
misconduct, the parties agreed to the imposition of the 
reinstatement condition.  
¶11 We adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law 
set forth in the parties’ stipulation. Attorney Nelson’s use of 
funds belonging to clients and to her law firm for her own 
purposes and her deceitful efforts to conceal that conduct 
demonstrate that she is not fit to be licensed to represent 
persons in the legal system. A two-year suspension of her 
license to practice law is appropriate discipline for her 
professional misconduct. We note that Attorney Nelson ceased the 
practice of law in Wisconsin in early 1998 and relocated to 
Minnesota.  
¶12 IT IS ORDERED that the license of Robin A. Nelson to 
practice law in Wisconsin is suspended for a period of two 
years, effective the date of this order.  
¶13 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Robin A. Nelson comply with 
the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of a person 
whose license to practice law in Wisconsin has been suspended.  
¶14 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the reinstatement of Robin 
A. Nelson’s license to practice law is subject to the condition 
set forth in this opinion.  
 
 
1