Hancock County’s elected probate judge has been suspended from practicing law for a year.
Justice James Martemucci this week approved a petition by the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar to impose the suspension of William Blaisdell IV, who has held the part-time position of Hancock County probate judge since 2014. In addition to overseeing the county’s probate court, Blaisdell has continued to work privately as a lawyer.
The suspension comes on the heels of Blaisdell having been found in contempt of court in Waldo County — for the second time in just over a year — for failing to pay court-ordered child support and legal fees to his ex-wife.
Last August, after the first contempt-of-court order was issued against him in Waldo County, Blaisdell reached an agreement with the overseers board, which upholds standards of conduct for licensed lawyers in Maine. That agreement required Blaisdell to abide by certain conditions to prevent his law license from being suspended for a year.
That agreement was violated in February when District Court Judge Kate Dufour determined that Blaisdell, 55, was overdue in paying $17,000 in court-ordered child support and attorney’s fees to his ex-wife. Blaisdell and his ex-wife divorced in 2019.
Blaisdell’s repeated failures to abide by court orders “demonstrates that Blaisdell threatens imminent injury to the public and to the interests of justice, which justifies” the suspension, Martemucci wrote in the April 7 order.
In a separate April 7 order, Martemucci placed Blaisdell’s law practice in the receivership of attorneys Paul Driscoll and Daniel Pileggi, who will manage it while Blaisdell’s license is suspended.
A little over a year ago, in March of 2024, Blaisdell was found in contempt of court by another Waldo County judge, Patricia Worth, who determined he owed his ex-wife nearly $50,000 in overdue child support and legal fees. The $17,000 he owed two months ago was in addition to the previous $50,000 he had not paid as of March 2024.
As part of the March 2024 contempt-of-court order, Worth wrote that Blaisdell had failed to comply with previous child support orders and that, at a prior hearing, he testified “that despite being a practicing Maine attorney and being the current sitting Hancock County Probate Judge, [he] has not filed his federal or state income taxes for 2022, 2021, 2020 and possibly for 2019.”
Court hearings and subsequent inquiries also revealed he neglected a criminal defense client who sat in jail for 11 months trying to get his bail reduced.
Among the requirements of the agreement that Blaisdell reached last summer with the overseers were that he file and make needed payments on his overdue tax returns within 90 days, and that he promptly and fully comply with all court orders, including those related to his divorce.
During a call with state officials last month about the overseers’ petition, Blaisdell acknowledged that he was not up to date on filing and making payments on his overdue tax returns from recent years, or with filing proof of that compliance with the Overseers of the Bar, according to an order signed last month by Martemucci.
In that order, Martemucci gave Blaisdell until April 1 to meet those requirements.
Blaisdell has served as Hancock County’s probate judge for the past decade. After first being elected to the post in 2014, he narrowly won re-election in 2018 against Lynne Williams, a lawyer from Bar Harbor who went on to serve in the Maine House of Representatives before her law license was suspended in January for alleged misconduct.
Blaisdell was re-elected as probate judge without opposition in 2022. He will be up for re-election to the position next year, unless he resigns or is removed from office by the governor before then.
