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On a roll: Attorney takes her lumps on roller derby track

By: Jack Zemlicka, [email protected]//March 21, 2012//

On a roll: Attorney takes her lumps on roller derby track

By: Jack Zemlicka, [email protected]//March 21, 2012//

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Attorney Katie Bricco skates in a Brewcity Bruisers bout March 10 in Milwaukee. Bricco, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s office, is a member of Maiden Milwaukee. (Staff photos by Kevin Harnack)

Katie Bricco assembled an unusual jury for her trial advocacy course at Marquette University Law School last year.

A four-year member of the Milwaukee-based Brewcity Bruisers professional women’s roller derby league, Bricco invited her Maiden Milwaukee teammates to enter the jury box for her mock trial presentation.

“It was great to see familiar faces in the jury,” said Bricco, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office. “But it was really exciting to see them at practice later and have the girls tell me I really looked like a lawyer.”

But Bricco, who skates under the name “Super Hera” after the Greek goddess, said she hasn’t always embraced the intersection of her professional career and personal passion.

Prior to attending law school, the Clintonville native lived in Norfolk, Va., and worked as a paralegal. It was there that she got her first taste of roller derby with the Dominion Derby Girls out of Virginia Beach.

“I did some informational interviews with some attorneys out there and would always get tons of questions about doing roller derby,” Bricco said. “Then, at the end of the conversation, they would say, ‘Well, you know you can never discuss this if you actually work here.’”

Bricco, 27, said a common reaction from people at private firms who knew she skated was that the roller derby persona didn’t fit the professional image of an attorney.

For that reason, Bricco said, she was reluctant to advertise her participation with the Brewcity Bruisers when she moved to Milwaukee to attend law school at Marquette or when she joined the Waukesha office of the SPD after graduating in August.

“I really kind of kept it to myself at first,” she said, “and wanted people to know me and not have any sort of fallout from it.”

But Bricco said she realized the prejudice she encountered on the East Coast was a product of misperception about the sport and its participants. While the bouts are physical, they are nothing like the vicious leagues popular in the 1970s, she said.

In the five years since she started skating, Bricco said, participation in women’s leagues has grown throughout the Midwest, and the sport, while still unique, doesn’t carry the same stigma.

“People in the office have been really supportive, and I’ve even had a few judges, off the record, pull me up to the bench and ask me questions about it,” she said. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised, so that’s been the positive overlap I’ve felt.”

A vocal contingent of fans from the SPD office and the Waukesha County Courthouse even attended a Feb. 11 bout to cheer on Bricco, whose Maiden Milwaukee team defeated the Rushin’ Rollettes.

This year, the four-team Milwaukee league had three regular-season bouts, the last of which took place March 10. In between, Bricco said, there are two mandatory practices per week along with occasional Saturday skates.

The commitment totals about 10 hours per week, she said, and takes its toll on the body.

Her co-workers maintain an injury report for Bricco, who sustained her first concussion earlier this season.

“The most common injury is what we call rink rash,” she said. “We skate in fishnets and hot pants and things like that, so falling on the concrete can hurt.”

But the bumps and bruises haven’t affected Bricco’s ability to represent clients in the courtroom and hasn’t interfered with her professional career, she said.

Still, Bricco said, she won’t be able to compete forever.

“The decision to quit will be if anything happens with my body,” she said. “You can’t skate pregnant, and people stop doing the sport when their life phase changes.

“At that point, I’ll know it’s time to hang up the skates.”

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