Revocation for Domestic-Abuse Stalking as “Fitness” Misconduct Under SCR 20:8.4(b): In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Mirza (2026 WI 13)

1. Introduction

Case: Office of Lawyer Regulation v. Osman A. Mirza, No. 2023AP2369-D (Wis. Apr. 15, 2026).
Parties: Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR), complainant; Attorney Osman A. Mirza, respondent.
Core issue: What discipline is warranted under SCR 20:8.4(b) when an attorney is convicted of felony stalking and misdemeanor criminal trespass (domestic-abuse modifiers), and the factual record in the disciplinary case is narrowed by a spare post-remand stipulation?

This proceeding began after Mirza’s criminal case (conduct directed toward his then-wife, S.E.S., between 2018 and 2020) resulted in convictions for felony stalking and misdemeanor criminal trespass to dwelling, with nine additional counts dismissed and read in. The Wisconsin Supreme Court summarily suspended Mirza’s license on October 30, 2023 under SCR 22.20. The OLR then filed a single-count disciplinary complaint alleging that Mirza’s criminal conduct reflected adversely on his “honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects,” violating SCR 20:8.4(b).

The matter reached the Supreme Court once before. In In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Mirza, 2025 WI 6, the court vacated the referee’s initial report and remanded for clearer findings about which alleged acts were established—especially because “read-in” charges are not convictions and therefore require proof in the disciplinary forum. On remand, the parties submitted a limited stipulation, and the referee again recommended a one-year retroactive suspension. In 2026 WI 13, the Supreme Court accepted the referee’s findings but imposed the more severe sanction of revocation, effective retroactively to the date of summary suspension.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The court held that Mirza’s conduct violated SCR 20:8.4(b) and that the referee’s proposed sanction—a one-year suspension retroactive to October 30, 2023—was insufficient. Even though the post-remand stipulation confined the “universe of facts” to a limited set of proven events (including repeated vulgar/abusive communications over years, unlawful entry into S.E.S.’s dwelling, physically injuring her by flipping her over a couch arm, threats captured on a recorded call, and late-night window-peering), the court concluded that the misconduct demonstrated a lack of character and integrity incompatible with the practice of law. It therefore ordered:

  • Revocation of Mirza’s Wisconsin law license, effective October 30, 2023;
  • Full costs of $24,056.22 payable within 60 days;
  • No restitution (none sought); and
  • Compliance with SCR 22.26 duties of a revoked lawyer.

A dissent (Justice Hagedorn, joined by Justices Ziegler and Rebecca Grassl Bradley) agreed significant discipline was warranted but argued revocation appeared inconsistent with prior cases and risked treating domestic-abuse cases differently absent a closer tie between the crime and law practice.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Mirza, 2025 WI 6

The 2025 decision framed the remand’s purpose: to identify (1) which acts were conclusively established by Mirza’s convictions under SCR 22.20(5) and (2) which additional acts (especially those underlying read-in charges) were proven by “clear, satisfactory, and convincing evidence.” In 2026, the court acknowledged the remand did not produce the clarity sought; nevertheless, it refused a second remand and proceeded under SCR 22.17(2) (review when no appeal is filed from the post-remand report), treating the stipulation as the full factual record.

Robinson v. City of West Allis, 2000 WI 126

The court invoked Robinson to underscore a key distinction: “read-in” charges preclude later prosecution but are “not otherwise treated as adjudications of guilt.” That point mattered because it drove the remand in 2025 and contextualized why the court could not simply treat dismissed/read-in allegations as proven misconduct without evidence meeting the disciplinary standard.

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Inglimo, 2007 WI 126; In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Widule, 2003 WI 34

These cases supply the standard of review and the court’s independent role in sanctioning:

  • Inglimo: factual findings upheld unless clearly erroneous; legal conclusions reviewed de novo.
  • Widule: discipline determined independently by the court, though informed by the referee’s recommendation.

In re Disciplinary Proceeding Against Johns, 2014 WI 32

Johns provided a key doctrinal formulation the court applied directly: some criminal conduct is so “revealing of character defects” and so undermines public confidence that it “necessarily reflects adversely” on a lawyer’s fitness. The Mirza majority used this to tie domestic-abuse-related stalking, threats, and violence to professional fitness (even absent an explicit client-related or practice-related nexus).

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against DeLadurantey, 2023 WI 17

The court cited DeLadurantey for the familiar triad guiding sanction selection: prior case law, the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, and aggravating/mitigating factors.

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Netzer, 2014 WI 7 and In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Meyer, 2022 WI 39

These were the principal comparators. The referee placed Mirza between them; the court rejected that characterization and aligned Mirza with Meyer.

  • Netzer: 90-day suspension for violating a harassment injunction and related conduct (emails, postcard, newspaper ads, proximity violations). The case illustrated lower-end sanctions where misconduct, though criminal, was less violent and less physically threatening.
  • Meyer: revocation for violations of SCR 20:8.4(b) and (c) based on felony stalking and other conduct including physical violence, extensive harassment, and using attorney status to intimidate. The Mirza majority treated Meyer as setting the “baseline sanction” for prolonged stalking paired with violence and threats toward an intimate partner.

Notably, the Mirza majority treated the absence of a proven “law-practice nexus” (central to the dissent’s concern) as non-dispositive where the criminal conduct itself showed fundamental unfitness and character defects under SCR 20:8.4(b).

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Davig Huesmann, 2018 WI 114

The court used Davig Huesmann to limit mitigation based on mental health or personal problems: such circumstances do not mitigate absent a record showing they caused the misconduct or impaired the lawyer’s ability to conform conduct to professional requirements.

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Dudas, 2021 WI 5

Dudas supported setting the effective date of revocation to the date of the prior SCR 22.20 summary suspension—an approach the court framed as consistent with past matters.

In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Kratz, 2014 WI 31

The court invoked Kratz to reject Mirza’s request to reduce costs based on alleged willingness to stipulate earlier. Kratz stands for the court’s reluctance to “undertake the task” of reconstructing negotiation histories to apportion costs, reinforcing the default approach of imposing full costs absent persuasive reasons.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

(a) Proceeding on a narrowed post-remand record

A central feature of the opinion is procedural realism: the court criticized the “unusually austere” stipulation and the referee’s acceptance of it without “flesh[ing] it out,” but ultimately refused another remand. The court declared it would treat the stipulated facts as the “universe of facts for this case” and decide sanctioning within that constraint.

(b) Misconduct: SCR 20:8.4(b) satisfied by violent and threatening criminal acts

The court held that the stipulated criminal acts—combined with the prolonged nature of the abuse—reflected adversely on Mirza’s fitness. The court emphasized:

  • The misconduct was “violent, abusive, and aberrant” and persisted for years.
  • Domestic context does not mitigate: “His actions are in no way mitigated because his victim was his wife.”
  • Such conduct undermines public confidence and reveals character defects under Johns.

(c) Sanction selection: aligning “baseline” with Meyer

Despite the incomplete factual record, the court concluded the known facts were sufficiently serious and sufficiently comparable to Meyer to justify revocation. The court treated revocation as the “baseline sanction” and then asked whether mitigation warranted a departure.

(d) Mitigation discounted; aggravation emphasized

The referee found many mitigating factors; the court reweighed them and largely discounted them:

  • No prior discipline: given the misconduct began roughly one year after admission, the court found this had “little” weight.
  • No selfish motive: rejected; coercive control and intimidation were deemed “inherently selfish.”
  • Personal/mental health problems: given little/no weight absent proof of causal connection (Davig Huesmann).
  • Inexperience: irrelevant to domestic abuse; legal inexperience did not cause the conduct.
  • Remorse: discounted because Mirza simultaneously asserted “wrongful conviction” themes and “den[ied] the accuracy of many” stipulated facts, undermining acceptance of responsibility.

Aggravation included: pattern of misconduct, illegality, selfishness, and incomplete acknowledgment of wrongfulness. The court also treated as aggravating a stipulated “shooting range target” incident—explicitly noting it was not charged separately but still relevant to sanctioning context.

(e) Retroactive effective date and costs

The court set revocation effective October 30, 2023, consistent with the practice reflected in Dudas. On costs, the court applied its general policy under SCR 22.24(1m) and relied on Kratz to refuse an inquiry into who offered what settlement when.

3.3 Impact

The decision’s most important practical effects are likely these:

  • Revocation as a realistic outcome for domestic-abuse-related stalking/violence under SCR 20:8.4(b): The majority treats prolonged domestic abuse, threats, and violence as directly probative of “fitness” even without an explicit connection to client representation or misuse of law license. This may broaden how “fitness” is operationalized in sanctions analysis in future cases involving severe interpersonal violence.
  • Limited stipulations do not necessarily cap discipline at “compromise” levels: Even where post-remand fact development is thin and the parties jointly request retroactive suspension, the court may still impose revocation if the established facts are grave enough and comparators support it.
  • Mitigation tightening in character-based misconduct: The court’s approach suggests that common mitigators (no prior record, inexperience, remorse, personal problems) may carry diminished weight when misconduct begins shortly after admission, persists as a pattern, and is accompanied by denial or minimization.
  • Dissent signals doctrinal tension: The dissent warns of inconsistent sanctioning absent a practice-of-law nexus, potentially previewing future debates about whether SCR 20:8.4(b) revocations should be reserved for misconduct more directly tied to law practice or dishonesty, versus general character-based unfitness.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • SCR 20:8.4(b): A rule making it professional misconduct to commit criminal acts that show the lawyer is not trustworthy or fit to be a lawyer—even if the crime is not committed in a client matter.
  • Summary suspension (SCR 22.20): A temporary suspension imposed quickly after conviction of a “serious crime,” designed to protect the public while discipline proceeds.
  • Conclusive proof of guilt (SCR 22.20(5)): In discipline based on a conviction, the conviction record conclusively proves guilt for that crime; the OLR need not re-prove those elements.
  • “Read-in” charges: Dismissed counts that are considered at sentencing and generally bar later prosecution, but (per Robinson v. City of West Allis) are not the same as findings of guilt for other purposes—so disciplinary authorities generally must prove the underlying acts if they want them to count.
  • Clear, satisfactory, and convincing evidence: The heightened burden used in Wisconsin attorney discipline—more than “more likely than not,” less than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
  • Suspension vs. revocation: Suspension is time-limited; revocation ends the license and requires a formal petition and approval process to regain the right to practice.
  • Retroactive discipline: Setting the effective date back to the date of a prior summary suspension so the time already out of practice counts toward the sanction.

5. Conclusion

2026 WI 13 stands for the proposition that prolonged domestic-abuse-related stalking, threats, and violence can warrant revocation under SCR 20:8.4(b) as conduct reflecting fundamental unfitness to practice law, even when the disciplinary record is constrained by a limited stipulation and the misconduct is not shown to be connected to client representation. The court aligned Mirza’s misconduct with In re Disciplinary Proceedings Against Meyer and treated revocation as the appropriate baseline, discounting mitigation that did not convincingly explain or excuse the behavior and emphasizing the pattern, illegality, and incomplete acceptance of responsibility. The dissent highlights an unresolved tension in Wisconsin discipline jurisprudence: whether the gravest sanctions under SCR 20:8.4(b) should depend on a tighter nexus between criminal conduct and law practice, or may rest primarily on character-based unfitness demonstrated by severe interpersonal violence.