Jenkins Maven release fails due to log files from unit tests

I unfortunately may have two questions in one, or rather the solution may go two different ways. I have log4j loggers set up in a few classes that I unit test on. When I run mvn clean install it obviously runs those tests and in turn creates a log file (that is usually empty as nothing exciting is being logged). This isn't necessarily a problem except that Jenkins doesn't seem to like this when I do Perform Maven Release. It yells about the workspace having local changes and it cites the log file before declaring failure.

I know its the unit tests because if I changed them to integration tests or ignore them, everything works fine. But I'd like a solution not a workaround.

Are there configurations in Jenkins that can allow me to remedy this?

Or is there a strategy for mocking or ignoring logging for Unit tests?

I don't necessarily want to ignore them, but it is interfering with creating a release.