Legislative Law Bulletin

The Legal Profession Blog is reporting two recent developments involving bar discipline of lawyers who held public positions. In the first case, a former state senator with “a felony conviction for misconduct in office and being party to campaign contributions in excess of the legal limits” was reinstated as a member of the Wisconsin Bar after serving a two year suspension. In the second case, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Discipline Commission is seeking to discipline a lawyer who served as a non-lawyer municipal official in Chicago. In her municipal offices, the lawyer was responsible for hiring and promoting employees. She allegedly met with the city’s government relations office to receive lists of persons politically connected to City Hall and then bent the city’s civil service system to ensure those with political juice were hired. This politically sensitive hiring ran afoul of a Federal court consent decree barring patronage employment.