Daryl W. Laatsch

Daryl Laatsch recommended my husband and I file Bankruptcy in SE District of Wisconsin. He lacked the expertise needed to evaluate our situation adequately, and filed the Petition without meeting with us, letting us review the Petition and without obtaining our signatures on it. We have lost more t...han $500,000.00 in cash and assets as a result of his poor legal advice. He failed to inform us once filed, it could not be withdrawn and as a result many of our assets were taken by the Trustee. We asked Laatsch to withdraw as counsel, so we could retain competent counsel, but due to his games and delays, we were left to fend on our own for several months until the Court heard the Motion to Withdraw. He incorrectly listed assets, values, debts, amounts, etc. He completed the Petition "In front of the tv while watching the Sunday football game and having a few beers" (Sept. 16, 2012) according to what he said to us. We lost our homestead and are now virtually on the streets. We are both retired, and one of us is disabled with serious health issues. He has refused to return our personal financial documents, tax returns and other sensitive documents, although he was allowed to withdraw as counsel. This man is poorly organized in his office, had no secretary, and all the mail sent to him by the Bankruptcy Court Clerk was returned as "undeliverable" although he provided the court with his address. He filed false Affidavits, including an Affidavit of Mailing. The postmark on the envelope was five days after he stated under oath he had placed the envelope in the U.S. mail. He was a Municipal Judge who had a Judicial Complaint filed against him by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission for misconduct while serving as a judge. Although the Supreme Court reprimanded him (the voters did not return him to the bench after 2007) and the Rules of Ethics prohibit him from advertising himself as a judge, former judge or using that position for financial gain, he continued to show himself on the bench in his ads until recently. He was in dirty shorts, wearing a stained shirt, and sandals when we first met him at his shared office space on Main Street in West Bend. We were referred to him by another law firm who specializes in fraud cases because they were too busy to meet with us before an upcoming court case where we alleged mortgage fraud. We did, indeed, incur extraordinarily high legal fees straightening out the schedules and ultimately paying through the nose under Bankruptcy laws. Our legal fees exceeded $40,000 not including all the federal taxes we have paid and still owe to cover the IRA distributions which we needed to take to cover the assets seized by the Trustee.