State Supreme Court rules former Kenosha woman can practice law despite drug conviction

 Adivided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a former Kenosha woman will be able to practice law despite being less than forthcoming about a past drug charge for attempting to smuggle more than 100 pounds of marijuana from Oregon to Wisconsin.

The court ruled 4-3 Tuesday to reverse a Board of Bar Examiners decision that Abby Padlock was unfit to practice law in Wisconsin, directing the board to certify Padlock’s admission to practice law in the state.  "We again choose to exercise our prerogative and afford this applicant the benefit of the doubt," the court wrote.

Padlock

The state bar had earlier ruled that Padlock did not have the “character andfitness” to practice law in the state because she did not fully disclose the circumstances of her arrest on drug smuggling charges on her law school application or when she applied for admission to the Wisconsin State Bar.

Padlock was an all-state volleyball player at Tremper High School who went on to play volleyball at college. When she was 24, Padlock and a friend were driving from Oregon to Wisconsin in October 2015 when they were stopped by a Minnesota police officer who found 76 individual packages of marijuana that, all together, weighed 114 pounds. During the subsequent investigation, police found $30,000 in cash in Padlock’s home, that cash seized in a civil forfeiture.

Read more: https://www.kenoshanews.com/news/local/state-supreme-court-rules-former-kenosha-woman-can-practice-law-despite-drug-conviction/article_0f2ea775-ba5b-5a1e-b57c-6710c10a0089.html