State officials have petitioned Maine’s top court to suspend Hancock County’s elected probate judge from practicing law.
The petition, dated April 1, seeks an immediate interim suspension of William B. Blaisdell IV’s law license. Blaisdell works as a private-practice attorney in addition to his part-time position as an elected probate judge.
The petition makes repeated references to a March 8 contempt of court order filed in Waldo County that sought to compel Blaisdell to pay overdue child support to his ex-wife.
The judge in the divorce matter, Patricia Worth, said that Blaisdell had missed multiple child support payments, failed to comply with several court orders and testified that he had failed to file tax returns for several years.
Blaisdell had the assets to pay the overdue child support — including expensive cars and a boat — and his refusal to pay it was harming his children’s best interests, according to Worth. The judge ordered Blaisdell to pay his ex-wife nearly $50,000 in overdue child support and legal costs by March 25 or face 90 days in jail.
Blaisdell paid the money he owed on March 20, avoiding the pending jail sentence.
Attorneys representing the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar, which regulates the professional conduct of licensed lawyers in the state, say that Blaisdell’s actions that led to the March 8 order demonstrate that he violated bar rules having to do with fairness to an opposing party and general misconduct. With the petition, the board is asking the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to temporarily suspend Blaisdell’s law license.
In addition, the board plans to hold a disciplinary hearing on May 20 to determine whether Blaisdell’s conduct surrounding the overdue child support may constitute other violations of professional rules. The hearing will cover whether Blaisdell broke rules pertaining to diligence, communication, representation and expediting litigation, among other things.
Blaisdell did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
If Blaisdell’s law license is suspended, it raises the question of whether he would be allowed to continue serving as Hancock County probate judge. County officials have said they have reciprocal agreements to borrow probate judges from neighboring counties in the event that Blaisdell cannot preside.
Blaisdell, who divorced his ex-wife in 2019, has spent the past decade as Hancock County’s probate judge, a role that oversees matters such as adoption, guardianship, inheritance and name changes.
After first being elected to the post in 2014, he narrowly won re-election in 2018 and then was re-elected without opposition in 2022. He faces re-election in 2026.