Generations in the Law

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If you’re looking for a six-figure salary as a new lawyer, you can skip this article.

If, however, you’re interested in learning how to practice law from the best, most caring mentors — and you’re lucky enough to have a parent who is also a lawyer — you might want to consider adding your name on Mom or Dad’s shingle.

Boyle, Boyle & Boyle

Eleven years ago, Bridget E. Boyle (l) joined her father, veteran criminal defense attorney, Gerald P. Boyle (c) in his Milwaukee practice. Seven years later, Gerald H. Boyle (r) joined his father and sister making it a three-way family affair. The younger Boyle is currently serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, but he looks forward to returning to Boyle, Boyle & Boyle S.C.

After attending closing arguments in a high-profile homicide trial, (then) 7-year-old Bridget E. Boyle told her father, defense counsel Gerald P. Boyle, in a voice similar to Elmer Fudd’s, “Dad, I wanna be you partner.”

Since that epiphany, Bridget has never considered any other career path.

Having a dad who’s one of the state’s highest profile criminal defense attorneys made her home life just a little different from that of other kids, she says.

Gerald, who has always enjoyed working from home and who occasionally meets with clients there, still remembers an evening where his young son, Gerald H., was sitting on a client’s lap, while Bridget played nearby. Afterward, his wife asked what kind of trouble that client was facing. “He’s accused of shooting six people in Florida,” was the response. But by then, she was so used to her husband’s clientele that she shrugged it off.

According to Bridget, the Boyle children learned not to take everything at face value at an early age. They also learned empathy, and about “the wrongs that can happen to people.” These were valuable life lessons.

She joined the firm as a lawyer in 1995, working cases with her Dad as part of her training. Although she no longer needs handholding, they still handle many cases together. Two of their more noteworthy representations have been of former Green Bay Packer Mark Chmura (acquitted of sexual assault and child enticement), and more recently, of Jon Bartlett (acquitted of recklessly endangering safety), whose case remains pending.

As for Gerald H., he was admitted to practice in Wisconsin on Sept. 9, 2002, and two hours later, as the newest lawyer with Boyle, Boyle & Boyle S.C., he was representing a client facing double-homicide charges. “Dad doesn’t play soft-pitch with his new associates,” he says.

Gerald H., a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, was deployed shortly afterward to Kuwait and then Iraq. He returned from his post-deployment training on Aug. 6, 2003, “and I was immediately in court the next day,” he says. He was called into active duty again in January 2005, and has been assigned to the Pentagon until March 2007. While it’s an honor to serve and he enjoys military life, he is anxious to return to the family firm.

The family has always been close, says Bridget, but practicing with her dad has made their relationship even stronger. “The time I’ve spent working with my dad has been one of the greatest experiences anyone could possibly imagine. We just have so much fun working together. People always ask how I can work with my family, but I can’t imagine not doing it. My dad is the first person I talk to every morning, and the last one at night.”

All right, that’s an exaggeration, she concedes. She is married, mother to a three-year-old son, and stepmother to four sons, teens and one college-aged — so there are plenty of others who occupy her time and energies.

For her son’s first 12 months, she brought him into the office — something that probably doesn’t go on at too many downtown Milwaukee law firms.

Gerald explains, “One of the things I was told as a lawyer was not to let the law become your mistress. I never have, and I wouldn’t tolerate my kids doing it, either. They have too many other, more important responsibilities.”

At the age of 70, he has no plans to retire. Those facing criminal charges are at their lowest points in their lives. He finds it incredibly rewarding to bring them a little hope and restore some of their dignity, and could never feel OK about abandoning his clients. He notes, though, “If my kids were not in my life, I probably wouldn’t be practicing still.”

Nell & Associates

Partners Richard E. Nell (l) and his daughter, Tricia A. Nell (r), find that they complement each other in their De Pere practice. Richard prefers the transactional work, while Tricia typically heads up their litigation at Nell & Associates S.C.

Unfortunately, Richard E. and Tricia A. Nell spent Labor Day 2006 laboring.

The two partners of Nell & Associates S.C. in De Pere needed to finalize their preparations for an oral argument before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, set for the Wednesday after the long weekend.

Their firm, which concentrates in business and health law litigation, frequently represents clients in high-stakes matters. It’s been a crazy, busy, exciting year and a half, they say. So, rest and relaxation has been out of the question. But, there will be other opportunities for leisure. The father-daughter team look after each other, and neither one will let the other get burnt out — they promise.

Tricia’s official start in the legal profession came while attending college at St. Norbert’s. She was “an endentured servant” with his former firm, jokes Richard.

He began thinking about starting his own law firm around the time that Tricia graduated from law school in 2001. For a year, she worked as a special prosecutor with the Brown County District Attorney’s Office, and at his former law firm. Within a year, she had already established herself as a more than capable litigator, so he knew she’d be an asset to the new firm, which was officially launched in 2002.

As for Tricia, she says the appeal of working with her Dad was obvious: “I realized that, during the time that he’d spent in De Pere, he had established a good, solid client base among businesses and physicians in the area, as well as a reputation within the community for service, which was also very important to me.”

Not surprisingly, Richard’s example influenced Tricia when she was choosing careers, she adds. “I think one of the main things I got see, being my father’s daughter, was what being a lawyer is really all about.

It’s a career where you can help individuals build businesses, help them when there’s a dispute, and help the community.”

As a law student, Tricia considered many options for her future — interning with a prosecutor and with a legal services provider, in addition to clerking with a large firm. “One of the things I noticed, in every place I worked, was that politics, for lack of a better word, or competition, or both, can get in the way of the way you want to practice law, help people and achieve your goals. But when I came over here to work with my dad, all that went away.

“He’s been an excellent mentor for me, and in turn, I think I work harder for him.”

Their legal skills are complementary; Richard prefers the transactional aspects of their practice, while Tricia typically takes the lead in their litigation. This sometimes draws unusual reactions. “It has happened more than once, when I’m lead counsel and he’s second-chairing me, where the judge has stopped us to ask if we’re husband and wife,” Tricia notes with a laugh.

Perhaps the only downside to practicing with a family member, says Tricia, is that, as the litigator of the two of them, when the judge does not see things eye-to-eye, she takes it especially hard when the client has a long-time association with her father.

“I’m more demanding of her, too,” admits Richard. “We give our employees a lot of time off, but we expect a lot of each other.”

He continues, “Sometimes, in the beginning, we both had a tendency to worry about hurting the other’s feelings. But after a while, we got the communication down and now we’re much better able at just laying it on the line.

“But basically, she’s always right, and I’m always wrong,” he chuckles.

Schulenberg & Father

Eric Schulenberg (r) and his son Benjamin J. Schulenberg (l) teamed up in 2003 to form Schulenberg & Father in Madison, otherwise known as Underdawg Law. The father and son team have dedicated themselves to representing “the little guy” through criminal defense and civil litigation.

In the case of Eric and Benjamin J. Schulenberg, it’s the parent who’s been added to the shingle.

The elder Schulenberg, Eric, explains that the firm is called Schulenberg & Father because, “When I die, then he can just scratch my name off the business cards.”

The firm is also known as Underdawg Law. Benjamin says that the firm’s “silent partners,” Eric’s wife (his mom) and his girlfriend, insisted on a more professional name, so Schulenberg & Father seemed like a good compromise. They opened their doors in 2003.

They like the other name because it’s a reflection of the clients the Schulenbergs take on. They would find it boring to represent the influential and well-heeled. Rather, they’ve dedicated themselves to representing the little guy.

The Schulenbergs concentrate their practices in criminal defense, but they also engage in some civil litigation. Eric, 62, spent the bulk of his career previously as an assistant public defender, after beginning his career, and spending many years, in legal services. Likewise, Benjamin, 32, worked for Legal Action of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and then served as in-house counsel to an AIDS advocacy group, before he and his dad joined forces in 2003.

The two cannot remember whose idea it was. Eric simply remarks, “Who wouldn’t want to practice with their son or daughter if they could?”

They don’t possess complementary skills and talents, but rather, “complementary faults,” according to Benjamin. What unifies them? “We’re both bad at billing and getting paid.”

When asked whether they consider themselves a high-volume practice, versus a high-quality-of-life-practice, the two laugh and say that the answer should be obvious. They practice in a small basement office two blocks away from the courthouse in downtown Madison. They have no staff (an overworked answering machine took many messages during this interview). They bike to work, partially for the health benefits but mostly to save on parking. When legal research is necessary, and the information isn’t on a free Web site, they use the State Law Library, less than a block away.

In sum, they keep their overhead low, to enable them to enjoy their practices and their lives.

The rule at family gatherings is “no shop talk,” because the other family members won’t have it. They adhere to it fairly well, they report.

They actually take vacations! Yes, together. Both are avid baseball fans, and their ideal getaway is to the ballpark — any ballpark. This summer, they visited a variety of them on the East Coast.

— Jane Pribek