Mendota Heights lawyer disbarred for client neglect, misconduct

In Brief

• Minnesota Supreme Court ordered disbarment citing a “constellation of misconduct.”
• Misconduct involved five clients, including missed hearings and failure to communicate.
• Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility filed petition alleging multiple ethics violations.
• Court found no remorse, aggravating factors present, and no mitigating circumstances.

Mendota Heights attorney Bradley Haddy has been disbarred. In a ruling filed April 29, the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded that he committed a “constellation of misconduct” supporting their decision.

Haddy has practiced law in Minnesota for nearly two decades, being admitted to practice in 2007. His areas of practice were family law and criminal law. Haddy does not have an extensive history of discipline; he was privately admonished in 2019 for failing to promptly return client property and disobeying two court orders to do so.

Between that time and 2024, when the director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility filed a petition for disciplinary action against Haddy, the OLPR alleged that he engaged in several instances of misconduct.

With one client, M.B., Haddy was to provide representation in a criminal matter. Although Haddy deposited the money M.B. paid him, he did not appear at M.B.’s original hearing or rescheduled hearing. He later testified that he lost track of the case.

In another case, S.Z. asked Haddy to represent him in a child custody matter. He wanted Haddy to file a petition for him to enroll the child in a school closer to his home. Haddy did not file the motion, and it was only after S.Z. filed the ethics complaint that Haddy filed the motion.

Haddy also represented R.R. in a child custody proceeding. R.R., the child’s father, lived in Mexico and was granted custody of the child during the child’s summer academic break. R.R. alleged that the mother was not permitting the child to travel to Mexico, and Haddy was served with a motion that the mother would seek modification of the custody and parenting time agreement. Haddy did not let R.R. know this and did not inform R.R. of the hearing. Unopposed, mother was granted temporary sole legal and physical custody of the child. R.R. had to spend $5,000 in legal fees to get new representation to vacate the custody order.

RELATED: More discipline stories

The OLPR also cited two more instances of misconduct affecting clients.

Originally, Haddy did not participate in the investigation of unprofessional conduct, although he did later. The referee found that Haddy committed substantial misconduct, found aggravating factors, and no mitigating factors. The referee recommended disbarment.

The Minnesota Supreme Court agreed, determining that the referee’s findings were not clearly erroneous.

“Haddy’s misconduct involved five clients and included numerous distinct violations over the course of approximately two years,” the court wrote. “Considered as a whole, Haddy’s various acts are not brief lapses in judgment or isolated incidents.”

According to the referee, Haddy did not show “regret or anguish for misconduct or for the extensive harm his misconduct caused” and “offered no apologies.” Similarly, the court found that while Haddy acknowledged the misconduct at the evidentiary hearing, he did not apologize but attempted to minimize it by claiming that his former clients suffered no harm as a result. He also attempted to deflect blame by, for instance, stating that a former client was angry and had substance abuse issues.

Hardy was disbarred effective April 29. He has one week to take down his website completely.