Biglaw

Former Biglaw Partner Gets 2-Year Suspension For Falsifying Documents

Eventually his web of deception was discovered.

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Adam Wiensch

Former Foley & Lardner partner Adam Wiensch was suspended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for two years for falsifying and backdating IRS documents, and causing other lawyers at the Biglaw firm to rely on those documents. According to the decision from the Wisconsin high court, the deception went on for a number of years until the web was eventually torn apart as pressure from an IRS audit mounted.

At the time of the incidents in question, Wiensch worked in Foley & Lardner’s trusts and estates department, representing a husband and wife who owed a private business. As part of that representation, Wiensch was charged with creating a trust for the benefit of his clients’ children and transferring more than $50 million of stock from their company to the trust. When his clients passed away, it triggered an IRS audit. According to Law.com, that’s when things really got interesting:

Responding to inquiries from an IRS lawyer in 2012, Wiensch provided the agency with copies of documents—an installment sale agreement, a collateral pledge agreement and a guaranty of a specific transaction—that he claimed memorialized the terms of the stock sale. Wiensch characterized the documents as having been created at the same time as the stock transfer, but that turned out to be untrue, according to the ruling. The lawyer had backdated the sale agreement and had copied the children’s signatures from another document and pasted them onto the guaranty document.

After both the husband and wife had died, the IRS issued a notice that the children owed “multiple millions of dollars” in taxes and penalties in connection with the stock sale. Foley & Lardner then represented the children and, without knowing Wiensch had falsified them, firm lawyers used some of the documents to support an argument for reducing the tax burden. The estate and IRS later reached a settlement, which the Wisconsin Supreme Court wrote was “induced by fraud,” because it was based on the doctored agreements.

But Wiensch’s questionable behavior didn’t stop there. In 2015, he also falsified power of attorney documents related to the wife’s estate. These doctored documents aroused the IRS’s suspicions and by mid-2016 they sought additional information. Around the same time, Foley & Larder also figured out something was fishy. They fired Wiensch and informed the authorities about the irregularities.

Foley & Lardner spokesperson Jill Chanen said:

“We have zero tolerance for actions that violate our core values and the trust our clients place in us,” Chanen said. “Upon becoming aware of irregularities, the firm promptly launched an internal review. It was determined that conduct occurred which needed to be reported to the appropriate authorities and the firm cooperated with them. The partner is no longer affiliated with the firm. We will continue to hold all of our people to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct.”

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Wiensch doesn’t deny the ethical lapses, and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision they note he stopped drinking after being confronted with the falsified documents and has been in AA since 2017.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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