Billing Six Hours For Preparing Bill Is Unreasonable

The North Dakota Supreme Court imposed reciprocal discipline based on an attorney's Wisconsin suspension.

The court described the Wisconsin findings:

...misconduct in his representation of clients in a bankruptcy matter for failing to timely respond to his clients' request for information concerning the status of the bankruptcy and for a bill; charging unreasonable fees when Kitchen's bill included an hour of time to retrieve the file from storage and six hours of time to prepare the bill itself; failing to maintain the requisite degree of documentation to permit identification of trust account transactions and the periodic balances on hand for each client; failing to submit the requisite records to the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation to assist in its investigation; and misleading the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation by suggesting on several occasions that he was sending the necessary documentation but later conceding that he did not have it.

(Mike Frisch)