HP Attorney Suspended On Interim Basis

A Highland Park attorney has been suspended indefinitely by the Illinois Supreme Court on accusations he engaged in criminal conduct of a sexual nature against six women, according to information from the Illinois State Bar Association.

The Bar Association reports Paul M. Weiss received the suspension on an interim basis and until further order of the Court on September 21 as part of its September Term of Court. Four of the female victims were reportedly employees of Weiss, who had been previously disciplined for making obscene phone calls to a 17-year-old high school girl he never met.

According to earlier reports, Weiss is a former and founding member of the Complex Litigation Group in Highland Park. Crain’s Chicago had reported in 2014 that “five women, including associate attorneys, who worked at the class-action firm, then called Freed & Weiss LLC, testified that Mr. Weiss made sexually suggestive comments, touched them inappropriately or exposed himself to them.”

It was also announced by the Bar Association that Ernest Kurt Koehler, another Highland Park attorney, was censured for allegedly having known of a client’s bankruptcy filing when he filed a lawsuit against the client and her business that included claims for unpaid legal fees, some of which had been incurred prior to the client’s personal bankruptcy discharge. He also entered into a debtor-creditor relationship with his client without obtaining the client’s written informed consent, according to the Bar Association.