► Attorney Carol Brown of Bethel, Alaska; ethical dwarf Print E-mail
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Attorney Carol Brown of Bethel, Alaska; ethical dwarf

 
The state of Wisconsin presented Carol J. Brown with a law license in 1993 after she graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School.
 
The Office of Lawyer Registration (OLR) found Carol guilty of the following misconduct.
  1. Commingled client funds with personal funds
  2. Failed to obtain client authorization to split fees with outside counsel
  3. Failed to communicate with clients
  4. Engaged in conduct involving fraud, deceit, dishonest or misrepresentation
  5. Failed to comply with client’s request for full accounting of payment of advance fees/costs
  6. Engaged in egregious conflicts of interest involving multiple clients
Carol’s law firm represented the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, a federally recognized Indian tribe in various matters, including membership and election disputes and efforts to amend the tribe’s constitution. The firm hired the husband of Carol’s law partner and another attorney on a contract basis to perform work related to the firm’s representation of the tribe. Carol failed to supervise the contract attorneys’ work and allowed the partner’s husband to be the attorney primarily responsible for some portions of the representation.
 
Carol violated the disciplinary rules by engaging in a course of conduct wherein she held out her partner’s husband as an employee, associate, or partner of her firm and allowed him to falsely present himself as counsel to her firm, when in fact she knew he was a contract attorney, acting independent of her firm.
 
Without ever obtaining the tribe’s consent and without its knowledge, Carol allowed her firm to charge the tribe a $35 hourly markup on the hourly fee contract rate paid by the firm and a $70 hourly markup for travel time regarding the independent contract attorney. Carol did so knowing that said conduct violated the Code of Conduct.
 
In her dealings with the tribe, Carol found it acceptable to send documents to the tribe that misrepresented (lied) that her firm had made a loan to the tribe and that several disbursements of the tribe’s funds held in a trust account represented payments on the fabricated loan.
 
In another matter, on two occasions, Carol disbursed more funds than her firm held in trust and then arranged to draw on the firm’s line of credit to cover the disbursements. Carol knowingly used client trust account funds to satisfy payments unrelated to the clients’ matters.
 
As a consequence of her misconduct, the enablers for Attorney Misfits sitting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court punished carol by gifting her with a complimentary reprimand. .
 
As we speak (ca. December 2012) Carol is employed with the Association of Village Council Presidents in Bethel, Alaska.
 
Do you really think that Carol advised the Association of Village Council Presidents that she was a certified Ethical Misfit?
 
 

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