Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Loses His Law License; Won't Be Filing Bogus ADA Lawsuits For Now

from the welcome-to-the-big-leagues dept

Prenda Law's Paul Hansmeier, infamous for constantly scheming about ways to use the judicial process to shakedown people for money, and pompously overstating his own position (e.g., "welcome to the big leagues") has now lost his license to practice law. The order from the Minnesota Supreme Court rather matter-of-factly lays out the claims against Hansmeier (amazingly, he seems to get off lightly given how much other stuff he did):

Hansmeier committed misconduct in the first matter by bringing a lawsuit for the sole purpose of conducting discovery to find the identity of others against whom claims could be made, making misrepresentations to the tribunal, filing articles of termination for a corporation that contained false statements. failing to comply with discovery requests, failing to pay attorney fees assessed against him, and transferring funds out of his law firm in order to avoid paying sanctions. In a second matter, Hansmeier committed misconduct by participating in the initiation of a lawsuit without a basis in law and fact, making false and misleading statements to the court, failing to pay attorney fees assessed against him by the court, and submitting to the court a financial statement that was false, misleading, and deceptive. In a third matter, Hansmeier committed misconduct by bringing a frivolous action for an improper purpose. And in a fourth matter, Hansmeier committed misconduct by testifying falsely during a deposition, bringing a frivolous claim, and perpetrating a fraud upon the court.

To be honest, I'm fairly impressed that they were able to compress so many of Hansmeier's actions down into a single paragraph like that. It usually takes me half a dozen paragraphs to explain what he did (and even that doesn't cover it). But the end result here is bye bye to that law license:

Respondent Paul Robert Hansmeier is indefinitely suspended from the practice of law, effective 14 days from the date of this order, with no right to petition for reinstatement for 4 years from the effective date of his suspension.

Of course, when we last checked in with Hansmeier he was aggressively filing questionable ADA lawsuits, basically shaking down small retail stores for any possible violation of the ADA he could find. I'm guessing that's going to need to stop -- but I do wonder if he'll find someone else to keep doing the legal work on that kind of scam.

Anyway, Hansmeier has now had his assets liquidated in bankruptcy and his law license taken away. What's next? Well, last we'd heard, it sounded like criminal charges were getting closer, so perhaps he has that to look forward to as well.

Welcome to the big leagues.

Filed Under: law license, paul hansmeier
Companies: prenda, prenda law