ATTY WILLIE NUNNERY, FORMER REAGAN, DREYFUS APPOINTEE, SUSPENDED 3 YEARS BY OLR

 Former PSC Commissioner, Reagan Appointee, Suspended for Three Years

 By Michael Horne

Monday, August 24th, 2009 is the last day of work for Madison Attorney Willie J. Nunnery [UW '75] after the Office of Lawyer Regulation suspended his license to practice law  for three years. (The OLR wanted revocation.) He is also to pay over $42,000 in costs to the OLR after restitution is made to his clients.
The case was heard by the Supreme Court in May and decided on July 21st, 2009. It consolidates two previous disciplinary actions against Nunnery, 2006AP1191-D & 2007AP1908-D. Here is the Journal Sentinel item on the suspension by Dan Bice.

Among Nunnery's quainter misdeeds:

• He paid himself $28,749 of assets remaining in an estate.
• He "stored" a sofa belonging to an estate in his office -- "where people could sit on it." 
• He reupholstered said sofa using $1,691.38 in estate funds. 

Nunnery better stay busy this weekend -- he is still the attorney of record in five open cases in Wisconsin courts, including two felony cases. One is in Kenosha County where the clerk had been informed of the loss of the license, according to court records. The word has also reached the clerk in Rock County. Let's hope somebody told the clients.

Nunnery, whose Louisiana license was also suspended in a reciprocal action, was appointed as a member of the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. He was appointed a State of Wisconsin Public Service Commissioner by then-Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus in 1981, and has held other state posts for the Republicans.

Nunnery also faces a delinquent Unemployment Compensation warrant of $200,  a $17,000 delinquent tax warrant, and a judgment for an unpaid bill from a Madison law firm that probably made the mistake of representing him. He'll get to appear in Rock County Circuit Court in September on charges of Operating a Motor Vehicle while suspended, a charge for which he has already been found guilty in Dane County. (All these cases are from 2009.)

In fact it is safe to say the number of cases against Nunnery is a very large percentage compared to the number of cases in which he was the attorney of record.