Kenosha County DA's law license suspended; here's what we know

KENOSHA, Wis. - The Office of Lawyer Regulation suspended Kenosha County District Attorney Xavier Solis's license. In a memo, the OLR says his license was "suspended for willfully failing to cooperate with one or more OLR investigations into alleged misconduct."

License suspended

What we know:

"My initial reaction is that this may be a, in the legal jargon, a nothing burger," said Nate Cade, partner and owner of Cade Law Group LLC.

Cade provides expert witness testimony on legal ethics and legal malpractice. He said it is not uncommon for lawyers to be suspended for failing to respond to OLR. But it is not clear what that alleged misconduct is referring to or what the investigation entailed.

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"It makes for good gossip, but right now, because we don’t know anything, it would be hard to do anything but speculate, and I don’t know if that’s appropriate," Cade said.

Cade explained the investigation and process is confidential. Records that could become public are discipline records or a formal complaint, which goes to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

"I’ve never heard of a district attorney being suspended, but I could imagine the District Attorney is maybe taking the stance that certain information he’s not required to turn over gets into some of the confidential materials of his file," Cade said.

Cade said without a license, Solis cannot serve as the District Attorney, so in the interim, a deputy is likely to take over his office.

"It is embarrassing for lawyers or other issues that come up and a lot of the allegations that come up are unfounded," Cade said.

The OLR investigates about 2,000 complaints in the state a year. As for the timing, legal experts say this could be turned over in a day or two. FOX6 News did try reaching out to Solis but did not hear back.

Portions of this article were formatted using A.I. FOX6’s Christina Van Zelst and an editor reviewed it for accuracy and tone prior to publishing.

Xavier Solis sanctioned

The backstory:

In February, Kenosha County Judge David Hughes sanctioned Solis for using "hallucinated" and false citations, and failing to disclose the use of artificial intelligence. The judge also dismissed two criminal cases Solis' office filed, ruling those cases should not have been sent to trial years ago.

The cases involved three men, two of whom had open cases in Kenosha County. They were charged in connection to a break-in at a village of Bristol trucking company back in 2023, and stealing more than $60,000 worth of items from the trailers.

The cases were charged under then-District Attorney Michael Graveley. Two of the three men charged were bound over for trial in 2023. But the case has remained open for nearly three years. In fall 2024, Solis was elected district attorney. He was sworn in, in January 2025.

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That summer, defense attorneys for the men asked the court to dismiss the cases because the evidence did not support probable cause that they committed the crimes charged. After months of time to prepare, defense attorneys said the state missed multiple deadlines. The defense requested the court to dismiss the case on the merits and for failure to prosecute.

In January 2026, Solis filed a reply on the defense motion to dismiss, but the defense attorneys had something to say about that. The defense attorneys noted it failed to address the primary issues and alleged that Solis' reply "appears to be riddled with what are called ‘AI hallucinations,’ including bogus, AI-generated case citations."

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