Former Shinders owner Robert Scott Weisberg, who lost that iconic Twin Cities business and saw his law partners walk out on him, now has lost the privilege of practicing law.
Weisberg suspended from practicing law
Ex-Shinders owner, whose life has been on a downward spiral due to substance abuse, is banned for three years.
By Star Tribune staff writer
January 26, 2010 at 3:23AM
The state Supreme Court ordered him suspended for at least three years in an order handed down last month, the culmination of a professional and personal collapse that first broke into public view three years ago.
Weisberg, who could not be reached for comment, was cited four times in 2007 and 2009 by the state Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, an agency of the state Supreme Court that oversees lawyer discipline.
The office first moved against Weisberg in early 2007 about the same time Shinders began closing some of its 13 Twin Cities locations; employees of the 90-year-old newsstand were told at the time that there was no money to pay them. Weisberg, meanwhile, faced disciplinary action for neglecting two client's cases to the point that they were dismissed, failing to pay settlement funds to clients in a timely manner in three cases, failing to return 171 client files in a timely manner and failing to cooperate with Martin A. Cole, the director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility.
The misconduct included a 2006 arrest in which methamphetamine and ecstasy were found in his van.
Between May 2007 and January 2009, the office filed three more petitions to discipline Weisberg. A memorandum filed last year pinned at least some of his behavior on substance abuse problems.
"Although no expert testimony or other medical records were submitted by respondent, his chemical dependency appears to have resulted in a downward spiral that culminated in the abandonment of a formerly successful law practice, the demise of a non-law-related business and came at great expense to his personal and family life," reads a section of a memorandum filed by Cole.
In addition to his suspension, Weisberg must successfully complete 12 months of random urinalysis tests before he can petition for reinstatement of his law license, the court ordered. He also was ordered to pay about $1,700 in costs and disbursements.
The order was signed Dec. 2 by Chief Justice Eric Magnuson.
Justice Alan Page was the lone dissenter, writing, "Given the misconduct, I would disbar."
Five lawyers were disbarred last year, according to court files. Nineteen, including Weisberg, were suspended.
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