The executive director of the Kansas ethics commission has activated his law license after he was criticized for allowing it to become suspended.
State court records show that Mark Skoglund’s law license is now active. He said it became active effective May 23.
Skoglund drew harsh criticism earlier this year when a group of Johnson County neighbors sought to have an ethics complaint dismissed because he didn’t disclose that his law license was suspended when he was identified during a hearing as a “licensed attorney.”
Lawyers for the neighborhood group, Fresh Vision OP, said Skoglund was obligated to reveal the status of his law license when questions about whether he was a licensed attorney were raised during the hearing.
The group noted that Skoglund’s law license had been suspended since 2015.
The ethics case – and the complaint against Skoglund – erupted in the Legislature.
Lawmakers moved to oust Skoglund by requiring the executive director of the ethics commission to be a licensed attorney in good standing.
The bill, which was ultimately scrapped, would have cost Skoglund his job after Fresh Vison battled the ethics commission over whether it should be labeled as a political action committee and forced to reveal its donors.
The ethics commission refused to dismiss the case against Fresh Vision OP, which was found to be a political action committee and was required to disclose its donors under state campaign finance law.
The commission ordered a rehearing because the complaint lodged by Fresh Vision did not involve a substantive error that could not be remedied.
The Fresh Vision case is still pending before the commission.
When the controversy erupted last spring, Skoglund said he chose not to maintain the law license because he wasn’t using it and the license is expensive to maintain.
On Thursday, Skoglund said he hoped that by activating the license he could resolve any questions surrounding his law license.
“I felt that it was time to reactivate the license to resolve anyone’s concerns about it,” Skoglund said in an interview Thursday.
He said reactivating the license would help clarify that the suspension stemmed from him not paying registration fees and not completing continuing legal education courses.
A registered active attorney in Kansas must complete 12 hours of continuing legal education a year, including at least two hours of ethics and professionalism.
A law license is not required for the ethics position and Carol Williams, the former longtime executive director of the commission, was not a licensed attorney.
Skoglund has been the executive director of the ethics commission since 2017 after working as a principal fiscal analyst for the Legislative Research Department.
He previously practiced law at the Sanders Warren & Russell law firm in the Kansas City area.
He has a law degree from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas.
