I hired Paul Ksicinski in July 2015 to represent me in a criminal case and in December 2015 I briefly hired him to represent me in a civil matter. I had paid him a total of $5,500 over the course of 5 months but he ended up doing nothing to earn it as well as being detrimental to both cases. He held onto important discovery evidence for 4 months even after I asked him about seeing this discovery evidence multiple times. It took 4 months before he finally showed me the documents. The discovery evidence he was holding onto proved how I was being set up with misleading evidence, false statements and exaggerated complaints. He demonstrated that he did not even look at this evidence. When it became apparent to me that I was on my way to losing both the criminal and civil cases because of his negligence I had decided to do the work myself and he withdrew as my attorney.
Paul was only verbally retained as my attorney in the civil matter for a couple of days before I changed my mind and decided to unretain him. I had paid him a $2,000 retainer for the civil case but he would not pay any of it back. I had noticed when running a search on him on the Wisconsin CCAP website located at https://wcca.wicourts.gov/case.html , that he had a pending eviction case against him. I figured he was having a lot of financial problems and was not capable of refunding anything. His financal problems explained why he would not respond to me in my attempts to inquire about refunding me the $2,000 I had just paid him. He was supposed to hold onto my funds in trust and only access them when earned.
Paul wrote up a 5 page withdraw letter going on and on about all of the research he did claiming it took 15 hours and claiming we had written fee agreement where I was to pay him $250 an hour for. I found out later that the research he wrote up in his withdraw letter was 3 pages of legal information plagurized word-for-word from a single source.
I knew Paul was committing fraud at this point. At the time, I did not want to deal with trying to get a fair refund from him since I had 2 other court cases to focus on. He told me in his withdrawl letter that he was only willing to refund me $500. I told him I wanted at least $2,000 back. When he wouldn't agree to even that much I asked for just $1,000. He told me he would agree to pay me $750. I said "alright" to that. It was a sadly low settlement offer since something was better than nothing. This was how that conversation went:
2016-01-04 08:38:02 Marshall: Hey I won't settle for $500. I have a mountain of
evidence I can use against you but I'd rather not waste each others time. I gave you $2000
originally last summer. Then you asked for $2500 for the entire motion process. I gave you
$1500 of that upfront and said I'd give you the other
2016-01-04 08:39:22 Marshall: And then $2000 for the small claims which I asked
for back shortly after. Would you be willing to refund me $1500 over the course of 6 months?
2016-01-05 10:15:25 Marshall: Ah well, anyway you still have all of the original
copies of the evidence and that book I lent you.
2016-01-07 14:16:04 Marshall: Hey, can you settle for $1000 within some
reasonable time period?
2016-01-07 14:19:09 Paul: Hi Marshall. I appreciate your comments in your 2 prior
texts. I am in a trial in Waukesha and on a break in court. I would be willing to go to $750.00,
ok? I of course acknowledge I have your book and need to send it back to you.
2016-01-07 14:22:39 Marshall: Alright
I ended up winning the criminal and civil cases by myself without an attorney. Most of the arguments used to win the case came from arguments I shared with Paul in the 42 e-mails I sent to him over the course of 5 months, e-mails which he had not replied to and likely never even looked at. He stopped replying to texts from me as soon as I told him I won the criminal case. I had repeatedly asked Paul on the status of the refund he agreed to send me, which he did not respond. On 6 occasions I texted him asking about some electronic evidence I gave him which he agreed to send me but he would not respond to that either. 8 months had passed after the time he agreed to send me a refund of $750. I figure he was probably hoping I would give up and disappear. It was at this point, I filed a grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation with my complaints about him.
It took about 2 years before the grievance process was concluded. He even hired his own attorney to represent him in my grievances. They ended up giving him a private reprimand from my complaint in exchange they had him refund me the $750 he had originally agreed to and he had to attend a seminar course on Trust Account management. His Private Reprimand posting can be found in the November 2018 edition of the Wisconsin Lawyer Magazine found here: https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Page/Article.aspx?Volume=91&Issue=10&ArticleID=26696 . His entry mentions another case I did not know about that resulted in another private reprimand.
This is what the private reprimand states:
"No Fee Agreement; Failure to Hold Advanced Fees and Costs in Trust; Advanced Fee Placement Alternative; Failure to Protect Clients’ Interests
Violations of SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2), former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4) and (b)(4m)b., SCR 20:1.16(d), and SCR 20:3.4(c)
A lawyer engaged in misconduct while representing two clients.
In one matter, the lawyer accepted an advanced fee of $3,500 in a criminal case. By failing to enter into a written fee agreement, and by depositing the advanced fee payments into the lawyer’s business account, the lawyer violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively. The lawyer accepted a $2,000 flat fee in a related small claims case, and again violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively.
The lawyer failed to return an agreed-upon refund and failed to provide material requested by the client, in each instance violating SCR 20:1.16(d).
In the other matter, the lawyer accepted a $15,000 flat fee for representation in criminal cases. Upon termination of representation, the lawyer failed to provide the client with the accounting and notices required under former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4m)b. and also failed to appear at a hearing in violation of SCR 20:1.16(d) and SCR 20:3.4(c). The lawyer failed to timely return the client file and to timely refund an unearned cost advance, in each instance violating SCR 20:1.16(d).
The lawyer also accepted a $3,000 flat fee for representation against a governmental agency. By having no written fee agreement, and by depositing the flat fee into a business account, the lawyer violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively. The lawyer failed to deposit cost advances into a trust account, violating former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4).
As conditions of the private reprimand, the lawyer made refunds to both clients and attended a trust account seminar.
The lawyer had no prior discipline."
I had heard from another forumer client of his that also filed a grievance against him with the OLR that is still ongoing. That victim alleges that Paul did not appear to have done any preparations for her case and did not show up to her hearing until the judge ordered him to come in. As with my case he allegedly did not take the time to go over discovery evidence with this person either. According to her complaint, she was rushed by Paul to accept a guilty plea but did not want to. This person ended up getting a maximum sentence of 9 months, imposed and stayed, and 2 months straight time before being eligible for probation then was taken jail immediately. The complaint goes on to say that while in jail she made every effort to contact Paul and get him to begin the process to appeal her sentence but he ignored her. Continuing on she had a family member attempt to contact Paul which was ignored and then had a friend go to Paul personally and ask him "Hey, your client (victim's name) needs you to file her Notice of Intent." where he allegedly responded by screaming at the top of his lungs, "You are harassing me! Leave now or I will call the cops!" at which point her friend left. Based on my experience with Paul I personally believe these allegations are true.
A common theme that I've noticed from the litigation process against him from myself and other victims is that he tends to use his health as an excuse to grant extensions or avoid deadlines. I have seen him do this during my grievance, was told he was doing it during another grievance, and his ex-wife tells me he would use health circumstances to avoid paying child support. He may have a lot of health problems given his apparent weight problems and other health issues he's mentioned to me but I think he's also exaggerated these problems in order to manipulate and delay the judicial process against him.
Paul is no stranger to trouble and financial irresponsibly. I noticed on Wisconsin's CCAP website under waukesha case number 1997PA000443PJ he had a bench warrant issued on him on 10/4/2015 for his neglect to pay child support and was forced to pay a $5,000 purge payment for. It was no wonder he was not able to pay me back. His ex wife alleged that was behind on his child support by 55k, for his handicapped son that his ex-wife tries to take care of using gofundme, and had a levy on his bank account to help pay his child support debts. In addition to the Waukesha eviction case 2015SC004484 I noticed while he was still handling my cases, other Waukesha eviction cases popped up about him over the next couple years in cases 2016SC002326 and 2017SC002242. These eviciton cases were settled out of court and are no longer visible on the CCAP website. Federal court records show under case number 00-21418-jes he has filed bankrupcy before in 2/23/2000.
I had heard he allegedly doesn't even bother to pay taxes. This is corroborated by the recent 7 tax warrants filed against him by the IRS:
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000763 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $15,951.98 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000762 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $16,758.54 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000761 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $19,395.94 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000760 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $17,855.60 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000758 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $14,635.48 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000755 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $20,402.84 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000752 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $18,852.85 judgement
According to Wisconsin's CCAP website he drives without car insurance and with a suspended drivers license. He's been given recent tickets for this under Waukesha case number 2018TR00281 for driving without car insurance and Waukesha case number 2018TR000282 for driving with a suspended license.
Additional lawsuit cases have popped up for him on the Wisconsin CCAP in the last few months, one for what looks like Anex, SC a ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Waukesha filed against Paul on 10/22/2018 in Waukesha County Case 2018SC005594 for $5,631.85. Another from Cornerstone Counseling Services, Inc also filed on 10/22/2018 in Waukesha County Case 2018SC005596 against Paul for $565.16.
His website http://www.paulksicinskilaw.com superficially looks like he might know something until you research it a bit. He advertises himself as having a "Proven Track Record of Success-Representation in all Misdemeanors and Felonies" but when you go to his list of "past cases" it shows the cases that presumably got the most media coverage but also shows all of these cases ended up being defeated in court:
1) KATHERINE M. HALOPKA-IVERY and LINDA M. HALOPKA-IVERY v. SCOTT WALKER et al
Milwaukee Supreme Court Appeal Number 2014AP000839 - Decision DENIED
2) STATE V. UNIVERSAL ALLAH
Milwaukee County Case Number 2014CF000517 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
3) STATE V. TRACY EDWARDS
Milwaukee County Case Number 2011CF003517 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
4) State v. Michael Henderson and Olando Maclin
Milwaukee County Case Number 2010CF001101 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
Milwaukee County Case Number 2010CF001950 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
He used to advertise the "Avvo CLIENTS CHOICE 2014" award for criminal defense on his site. A lawyer is given this award when they receive a minimum of 5 ratings with 4 stars or more within a year. Paul received exactly 5 reviews in that 2014 year where 4 of those 5 were all within the same day of each other and not a single review before ever and not a single review after for the next 3 years. To me this that looks suspecious like a fake award given from padded ratings. Since I mentioned this to OLR I noticed he no longer has this award on his website.
Another accomplishment heavily advertised on his site is being "Selected as one of the top 100 criminal defense lawyers in Wisconsin for 2018 by the American Society of Legal Advocates". https://societyoflegaladvocates.org/selection-process/ goes through the selection process for this. My suspecian is that he may have been nominated by a friend lawyer of his and with not a lot of information publically available he may have just slipped through the cracks and was selected by default. Because of his most recent reprimands he would have had his membership revoked had he opted to join the ASLA website. I don't believe they would approve of him advertising his logo on his site.
The way I found him myself was I saw his name listed on http://attorneys.lawinfo.com as a verified computer crime attorney only later to find out that he's never had a computer crime case in his life. I wasn't expecting much and was not very skeptical in my searches. I presumed that if he was not any good at his job he wouldn't have the job and was only looking for someone with average knowledge. Since my cases ended he's no longer listed as verified computer crime attorney on that site.
As a continued process of trying to get a fair refund form him I've also filed an application for refund from the Wisconsin Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection seeing that I am no longer willing to settle for only a $750 refund out of the $5,500 I've given to him after what he's put me through. I've noticed that I'm not the first one to go through this process with him either. Claim number 17-10 from 2017 reads:
"17-10 (alleged victims names here) v/ Atty. Paul A. Ksicinski
Date Filed: 5/11/16
Amount Sought: $1,000
License Status: Good
Summary of Claim: Claimant hired Ksicinski to represent her granddaughter in a divorce proceeding. A total of $3,000 was paid. Ms. Krenn did file for fee arbitration, however, Atty. Ksicinski did not respond or agree to participate in binding fee arbitration. She then went forward with submitting the request for reimbursement from the WLFCP. A copy of the fee arbitration application and correspondence from the program coordinator are included in the agenda materials. A fee agreement had been entered into by both parties that included the requirement of fee arbitration as it was an advance fee. Included in the application packet is a letter, dated February 9, 2016, from Ksicinski. The last sentence in the second to last paragraph Ksicinski said “in an effort to resolve this dispute I am willing to refund $1,000 to and settle any and all disputes and/or claims you may have about my handling of this case.”
Action: Deny [9/17/16]
Reason: Fee dispute "
When I briefly exchanged messages with one of the victims about what happened she told me "Yeah, we paid him a couple thousand dollars, and he didn’t show up on my court date, and I had to represent myself...he claimed his tire blew out on the freeway or something. But he couldn’t let anyone know. He’s a con artist alright! Sorry that happened!". Then after asking whether he refunded her money she told me "No, he claimed he did other stuff too that was worth the money...". This parallels my experience with him as well.
The advise I could give on hiring lawyers is to check their record on the Wisconsin CCAP website, check their reviews, check https://www.wisbar.org/Pages/BasicLawyerSearch.aspx for any public reprimands they may have gotten. After hiring make sure there are written fee agreements and the money you give to him/her is held in a trust account and only taken when earned. Keep accurate records of as much as possible in case you need to use it as evidence later. Familiarize yourself with the supreme court ethics rules they are supposed to uphold. For wisconsin this is located at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/scr/20 In the event they aren't not following their obligations you could tell them by quoting the rules. If you feel your lawyer has commited ethical violation(s) you can start a grievance process against him with the Office of Laywer regulation found in your state as well. For Wisconsin the applicaiton to start a grievance can be found at https://www.wicourts.gov/courts/offices/olr.htm#file Hopefully these experiences help people avoid the mistakes others have made from their dealings with Paul.
Paul Ksicinski Reviews
I hired Paul Ksicinski in July 2015 to represent me in a criminal case and in December 2015 I briefly hired him to represent me in a civil matter. I had paid him a total of $5,500 over the course of 5 months but he ended up doing nothing to earn it as well as being detrimental to both cases. He held onto important discovery evidence for 4 months even after I asked him about seeing this discovery evidence multiple times. It took 4 months before he finally showed me the documents. The discovery evidence he was holding onto proved how I was being set up with misleading evidence, false statements and exaggerated complaints. He demonstrated that he did not even look at this evidence. When it became apparent to me that I was on my way to losing both the criminal and civil cases because of his negligence I had decided to do the work myself and he withdrew as my attorney.
Paul was only verbally retained as my attorney in the civil matter for a couple of days before I changed my mind and decided to unretain him. I had paid him a $2,000 retainer for the civil case but he would not pay any of it back. I had noticed when running a search on him on the Wisconsin CCAP website located at https://wcca.wicourts.gov/case.html , that he had a pending eviction case against him. I figured he was having a lot of financial problems and was not capable of refunding anything. His financal problems explained why he would not respond to me in my attempts to inquire about refunding me the $2,000 I had just paid him. He was supposed to hold onto my funds in trust and only access them when earned.
Paul wrote up a 5 page withdraw letter going on and on about all of the research he did claiming it took 15 hours and claiming we had written fee agreement where I was to pay him $250 an hour for. I found out later that the research he wrote up in his withdraw letter was 3 pages of legal information plagurized word-for-word from a single source.
I knew Paul was committing fraud at this point. At the time, I did not want to deal with trying to get a fair refund from him since I had 2 other court cases to focus on. He told me in his withdrawl letter that he was only willing to refund me $500. I told him I wanted at least $2,000 back. When he wouldn't agree to even that much I asked for just $1,000. He told me he would agree to pay me $750. I said "alright" to that. It was a sadly low settlement offer since something was better than nothing. This was how that conversation went:
2016-01-04 08:38:02 Marshall: Hey I won't settle for $500. I have a mountain of
evidence I can use against you but I'd rather not waste each others time. I gave you $2000
originally last summer. Then you asked for $2500 for the entire motion process. I gave you
$1500 of that upfront and said I'd give you the other
2016-01-04 08:39:22 Marshall: And then $2000 for the small claims which I asked
for back shortly after. Would you be willing to refund me $1500 over the course of 6 months?
2016-01-05 10:15:25 Marshall: Ah well, anyway you still have all of the original
copies of the evidence and that book I lent you.
2016-01-07 14:16:04 Marshall: Hey, can you settle for $1000 within some
reasonable time period?
2016-01-07 14:19:09 Paul: Hi Marshall. I appreciate your comments in your 2 prior
texts. I am in a trial in Waukesha and on a break in court. I would be willing to go to $750.00,
ok? I of course acknowledge I have your book and need to send it back to you.
2016-01-07 14:22:39 Marshall: Alright
I ended up winning the criminal and civil cases by myself without an attorney. Most of the arguments used to win the case came from arguments I shared with Paul in the 42 e-mails I sent to him over the course of 5 months, e-mails which he had not replied to and likely never even looked at. He stopped replying to texts from me as soon as I told him I won the criminal case. I had repeatedly asked Paul on the status of the refund he agreed to send me, which he did not respond. On 6 occasions I texted him asking about some electronic evidence I gave him which he agreed to send me but he would not respond to that either. 8 months had passed after the time he agreed to send me a refund of $750. I figure he was probably hoping I would give up and disappear. It was at this point, I filed a grievance with the Office of Lawyer Regulation with my complaints about him.
It took about 2 years before the grievance process was concluded. He even hired his own attorney to represent him in my grievances. They ended up giving him a private reprimand from my complaint in exchange they had him refund me the $750 he had originally agreed to and he had to attend a seminar course on Trust Account management. His Private Reprimand posting can be found in the November 2018 edition of the Wisconsin Lawyer Magazine found here: https://www.wisbar.org/NewsPublications/WisconsinLawyer/Page/Article.aspx?Volume=91&Issue=10&ArticleID=26696 . His entry mentions another case I did not know about that resulted in another private reprimand.
This is what the private reprimand states:
"No Fee Agreement; Failure to Hold Advanced Fees and Costs in Trust; Advanced Fee Placement Alternative; Failure to Protect Clients’ Interests
Violations of SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2), former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4) and (b)(4m)b., SCR 20:1.16(d), and SCR 20:3.4(c)
A lawyer engaged in misconduct while representing two clients.
In one matter, the lawyer accepted an advanced fee of $3,500 in a criminal case. By failing to enter into a written fee agreement, and by depositing the advanced fee payments into the lawyer’s business account, the lawyer violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively. The lawyer accepted a $2,000 flat fee in a related small claims case, and again violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively.
The lawyer failed to return an agreed-upon refund and failed to provide material requested by the client, in each instance violating SCR 20:1.16(d).
In the other matter, the lawyer accepted a $15,000 flat fee for representation in criminal cases. Upon termination of representation, the lawyer failed to provide the client with the accounting and notices required under former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4m)b. and also failed to appear at a hearing in violation of SCR 20:1.16(d) and SCR 20:3.4(c). The lawyer failed to timely return the client file and to timely refund an unearned cost advance, in each instance violating SCR 20:1.16(d).
The lawyer also accepted a $3,000 flat fee for representation against a governmental agency. By having no written fee agreement, and by depositing the flat fee into a business account, the lawyer violated SCR 20:1.5(b)(1) and (2) and former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4), respectively. The lawyer failed to deposit cost advances into a trust account, violating former SCR 20:1.15(b)(4).
As conditions of the private reprimand, the lawyer made refunds to both clients and attended a trust account seminar.
The lawyer had no prior discipline."
I had heard from another forumer client of his that also filed a grievance against him with the OLR that is still ongoing. That victim alleges that Paul did not appear to have done any preparations for her case and did not show up to her hearing until the judge ordered him to come in. As with my case he allegedly did not take the time to go over discovery evidence with this person either. According to her complaint, she was rushed by Paul to accept a guilty plea but did not want to. This person ended up getting a maximum sentence of 9 months, imposed and stayed, and 2 months straight time before being eligible for probation then was taken jail immediately. The complaint goes on to say that while in jail she made every effort to contact Paul and get him to begin the process to appeal her sentence but he ignored her. Continuing on she had a family member attempt to contact Paul which was ignored and then had a friend go to Paul personally and ask him "Hey, your client (victim's name) needs you to file her Notice of Intent." where he allegedly responded by screaming at the top of his lungs, "You are harassing me! Leave now or I will call the cops!" at which point her friend left. Based on my experience with Paul I personally believe these allegations are true.
A common theme that I've noticed from the litigation process against him from myself and other victims is that he tends to use his health as an excuse to grant extensions or avoid deadlines. I have seen him do this during my grievance, was told he was doing it during another grievance, and his ex-wife tells me he would use health circumstances to avoid paying child support. He may have a lot of health problems given his apparent weight problems and other health issues he's mentioned to me but I think he's also exaggerated these problems in order to manipulate and delay the judicial process against him.
Paul is no stranger to trouble and financial irresponsibly. I noticed on Wisconsin's CCAP website under waukesha case number 1997PA000443PJ he had a bench warrant issued on him on 10/4/2015 for his neglect to pay child support and was forced to pay a $5,000 purge payment for. It was no wonder he was not able to pay me back. His ex wife alleged that was behind on his child support by 55k, for his handicapped son that his ex-wife tries to take care of using gofundme, and had a levy on his bank account to help pay his child support debts. In addition to the Waukesha eviction case 2015SC004484 I noticed while he was still handling my cases, other Waukesha eviction cases popped up about him over the next couple years in cases 2016SC002326 and 2017SC002242. These eviciton cases were settled out of court and are no longer visible on the CCAP website. Federal court records show under case number 00-21418-jes he has filed bankrupcy before in 2/23/2000.
I had heard he allegedly doesn't even bother to pay taxes. This is corroborated by the recent 7 tax warrants filed against him by the IRS:
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000763 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $15,951.98 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000762 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $16,758.54 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000761 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $19,395.94 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000760 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $17,855.60 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000758 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $14,635.48 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000755 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $20,402.84 judgement
Waukesha County Case 2018TW000752 Dept. of Revenue vs. PAUL KSICINSKI - $18,852.85 judgement
According to Wisconsin's CCAP website he drives without car insurance and with a suspended drivers license. He's been given recent tickets for this under Waukesha case number 2018TR00281 for driving without car insurance and Waukesha case number 2018TR000282 for driving with a suspended license.
Additional lawsuit cases have popped up for him on the Wisconsin CCAP in the last few months, one for what looks like Anex, SC a ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Waukesha filed against Paul on 10/22/2018 in Waukesha County Case 2018SC005594 for $5,631.85. Another from Cornerstone Counseling Services, Inc also filed on 10/22/2018 in Waukesha County Case 2018SC005596 against Paul for $565.16.
His website http://www.paulksicinskilaw.com superficially looks like he might know something until you research it a bit. He advertises himself as having a "Proven Track Record of Success-Representation in all Misdemeanors and Felonies" but when you go to his list of "past cases" it shows the cases that presumably got the most media coverage but also shows all of these cases ended up being defeated in court:
1) KATHERINE M. HALOPKA-IVERY and LINDA M. HALOPKA-IVERY v. SCOTT WALKER et al
Milwaukee Supreme Court Appeal Number 2014AP000839 - Decision DENIED
2) STATE V. UNIVERSAL ALLAH
Milwaukee County Case Number 2014CF000517 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
3) STATE V. TRACY EDWARDS
Milwaukee County Case Number 2011CF003517 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
4) State v. Michael Henderson and Olando Maclin
Milwaukee County Case Number 2010CF001101 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
Milwaukee County Case Number 2010CF001950 - Found Guilty/Pled Guilty of the felony charge
He used to advertise the "Avvo CLIENTS CHOICE 2014" award for criminal defense on his site. A lawyer is given this award when they receive a minimum of 5 ratings with 4 stars or more within a year. Paul received exactly 5 reviews in that 2014 year where 4 of those 5 were all within the same day of each other and not a single review before ever and not a single review after for the next 3 years. To me this that looks suspecious like a fake award given from padded ratings. Since I mentioned this to OLR I noticed he no longer has this award on his website.
Another accomplishment heavily advertised on his site is being "Selected as one of the top 100 criminal defense lawyers in Wisconsin for 2018 by the American Society of Legal Advocates". https://societyoflegaladvocates.org/selection-process/ goes through the selection process for this. My suspecian is that he may have been nominated by a friend lawyer of his and with not a lot of information publically available he may have just slipped through the cracks and was selected by default. Because of his most recent reprimands he would have had his membership revoked had he opted to join the ASLA website. I don't believe they would approve of him advertising his logo on his site.
The way I found him myself was I saw his name listed on http://attorneys.lawinfo.com as a verified computer crime attorney only later to find out that he's never had a computer crime case in his life. I wasn't expecting much and was not very skeptical in my searches. I presumed that if he was not any good at his job he wouldn't have the job and was only looking for someone with average knowledge. Since my cases ended he's no longer listed as verified computer crime attorney on that site.
As a continued process of trying to get a fair refund form him I've also filed an application for refund from the Wisconsin Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection seeing that I am no longer willing to settle for only a $750 refund out of the $5,500 I've given to him after what he's put me through. I've noticed that I'm not the first one to go through this process with him either. Claim number 17-10 from 2017 reads:
"17-10 (alleged victims names here) v/ Atty. Paul A. Ksicinski
Date Filed: 5/11/16
Amount Sought: $1,000
License Status: Good
Summary of Claim: Claimant hired Ksicinski to represent her granddaughter in a divorce proceeding. A total of $3,000 was paid. Ms. Krenn did file for fee arbitration, however, Atty. Ksicinski did not respond or agree to participate in binding fee arbitration. She then went forward with submitting the request for reimbursement from the WLFCP. A copy of the fee arbitration application and correspondence from the program coordinator are included in the agenda materials. A fee agreement had been entered into by both parties that included the requirement of fee arbitration as it was an advance fee. Included in the application packet is a letter, dated February 9, 2016, from Ksicinski. The last sentence in the second to last paragraph Ksicinski said “in an effort to resolve this dispute I am willing to refund $1,000 to and settle any and all disputes and/or claims you may have about my handling of this case.”
Action: Deny [9/17/16]
Reason: Fee dispute "
When I briefly exchanged messages with one of the victims about what happened she told me "Yeah, we paid him a couple thousand dollars, and he didn’t show up on my court date, and I had to represent myself...he claimed his tire blew out on the freeway or something. But he couldn’t let anyone know. He’s a con artist alright! Sorry that happened!". Then after asking whether he refunded her money she told me "No, he claimed he did other stuff too that was worth the money...". This parallels my experience with him as well.
The advise I could give on hiring lawyers is to check their record on the Wisconsin CCAP website, check their reviews, check https://www.wisbar.org/Pages/BasicLawyerSearch.aspx for any public reprimands they may have gotten. After hiring make sure there are written fee agreements and the money you give to him/her is held in a trust account and only taken when earned. Keep accurate records of as much as possible in case you need to use it as evidence later. Familiarize yourself with the supreme court ethics rules they are supposed to uphold. For wisconsin this is located at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/scr/20 In the event they aren't not following their obligations you could tell them by quoting the rules. If you feel your lawyer has commited ethical violation(s) you can start a grievance process against him with the Office of Laywer regulation found in your state as well. For Wisconsin the applicaiton to start a grievance can be found at https://www.wicourts.gov/courts/offices/olr.htm#file Hopefully these experiences help people avoid the mistakes others have made from their dealings with Paul.