Rebecca Kleefisch staffer wins bar admission over board's character concerns

Bruce Vielmetti | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A campaign staffer for Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch who the Board of Bar Examiners rejected on character and fitness issues won admission to practice law Friday from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

In a unanimous decision, the court said while it normally relies on the BBE's evaluations, it's the court's "ultimate responsibility for regulating admission to the Wisconsin bar," and that it found positive character evidence to offset "troubling" incidents that prompted the BBE's rejection.

According to the opinion:

Charles Nichols, 28, had plagiarized a paper during his third year at the University of Wisconsin Law School, then failed an ethics course for poor attendance, and also failed to disclose certain tickets and legal actions on his application.

Nichols had worked for Kleefisch's office as an unpaid summer intern in 2014, and then was hired with pay that fall, which he said made it hard to keep up with his law school work during the semester he submitted the plagiarized paper. He was also busy that fall volunteering with the Republican Party.

The paper was for the course "Law of Democracy" and "contained extensive language copied verbatim or nearly verbatim from four published law review articles, without citations" or credit. He admitted to the professor that his paper was "a mess" but said he didn't mean to plagiarize.

Nichols was found to have engaged in academic misconduct, given an F and required to take an online course on academic integrity and research.

In spring 2015, Nichols failed a required ethics course, "Professional Responsibility," because he missed too many classes. He repeated the class and graduated in December 2015.

When Nichols applied for admission to the bar last year, he disclosed the academic misconduct but omitted that he had been named in a 2007 eviction suit, had filed for a restraining order against an ex-girlfriend in 2008 and had been cited for an absolute sobriety violation in 2009, which was dismissed.

The BBE review also found that when Nichols applied to law school, he did not disclose three underage drinking citations that he had later disclosed on his application for admission.

At a hearing before the BBE last year, Kleefisch's chief of staff Daniel Suhr testified to Nichols' character, and the professor who caught the plagiarism, Robert Yablon, testified that he felt Nichols had been punished enough for that misconduct.

Still, the BBE in August concluded Nichols lacked candor and credibility and minimized his actions, and was not ready for admission to the bar. It recommended he reapply in a year.

"It appears as if Mr. Nichols has engaged in a pattern of behavior in which he disregards certain rules and authority to suit his needs," the BBE concluded.

"Such conduct is of grave concern to the Board causing it to wonder how Mr. Nichols would prevent such behavior in the course of dealing with clients in a future legal practice."

The court, however, said it would grant Nichols "the benefit of the doubt," and admit him with the condition that for two years he work under the supervision of a monitor who would report quarterly to the Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Nichols currently works for Kleefisch's campaign as a paid adviser and as a research director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.