Ellen Henak

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Assistant State Public Defender Ellen Henak started out as a special education teacher. During her 18 years with the SPD Appellate Division, Henak has used the skills she learned in her prior profession to help clients.

Her unique training has given her insight into the different characteristics of some of her clients and their needs. It also has helped her communicate with clients.

“One of the things you become aware of with a special education background is that a significant portion of the client population for the SPD office has special education needs,” Henak observed.

That background has helped her when reviewing clients’ school records or psychological reports. It also comes in handy when trying to explain the complex legal process in terms a client can relate to.

As a result, she is able to adapt her explanations and offer meaningful examples.

“It’s amazing how many people can go through the system and not really understand what happened,” she said.

Throughout her 18 years, she has represented indigent clients in criminal, juvenile, sexual violence, protective placement, termination of parental rights, and mental health commitment cases.

She has handled cases resulting in more than two dozen published appellate decisions, including more than 10 oral arguments before the state Supreme Court.

One of the cases that stands out for Henak is State v. Anthony D.B., 237 Wis.2d 1 (2000), dealing with the court’s authority to authorize involuntary medication of a person who was committed as a sexually violent person.

Henak said her special education background came in very handy as she dealt with a client who was mentally ill and she reviewed the medications that were involved, understanding their effects and side effects.

Although the justices found that the trial court could order involuntary medication of her client, Henak still considers it a victory because the Supreme Court wrote in “all the safeguards that really needed to be there.”

She said her ability to represent an unpopular group of people comes from a religious conviction about “the importance of treating all people as people.”

“It’s easy to love the loveable. Why should you be judged by that standard? … It’s can you take somebody who has done something horrible and, without justifying what they’ve done, recognize that they are still a person?”