State Bar Election

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“I think the bar as a whole, particularly with the work of the Strategic Planning Committee, is really doing a great job with the budget in a way that will make sure that lawyers are getting the best value for their dues dollar that they can.” Diane S. Diel, Diane S. Diel S.C., Milwaukee

As is customary in State Bar of Wisconsin officer elections, the two candidates vying for president-elect of the organization do not have strongly conflicting views.

Rather, perhaps the most significant conflict to be found in this race is between the president-elect candidates, both of whom are from Milwaukee, and the current State Bar President, Steve Levine, with regard to his promise to work to change the bar from a mandatory to a voluntary association.

Levine has a history of working to achieve this goal, including suing the association in the late 1980s in federal court to disintegrate the bar. He achieved a limited degree of success; the bar was voluntary from 1988 until 1992, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated its mandatory status.

The two who would assume Levine’s job in July 2008 say they oppose a renewed push for a voluntary bar.

Committed to Maintaining a Mandatory Bar

Diane S. Diel, of Diane S. Diel S.C. in Milwaukee, is a sole practitioner and experienced family lawyer who says she has institutional memory —she served on the State Bar Board of Governors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She remembers very well the 1992 meeting when the governors voted to petition the high court for reinstatement of the mandatory bar, as well as the entire course of events leading up to it. She recalls how the bar fared in the years it was voluntary, and before and afterward, and has concluded that the mandatory bar is here to stay.

“It’s better for the legal system as a whole. It helps to bring forward programs that benefit the public and the judiciary, law-related education, professionalism and professional ethics committees, and the Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program. These are important, valuable programs, and they deliver services to the membership that I think, under a voluntary bar, would not be as readily available,” she says.

“The mandatory bar is here today, and it will be here tomorrow. Efforts to change that are just setting the critics of the mandatory bar up for failure.” William J. Domina, Milwaukee Corporation Counsel

She also opines that the high court is not likely to grant such a petition, and therefore pursuing it is probably a waste of the bar’s time and resources.

That’s an aspect of the issue that often gets overlooked, says William J. Domina, her opponent — that it’s not up to bar members, but rather, the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

“There are many reasons why maintaining the mandatory bar would be attractive to the court, and I just don’t see them changing it in the near future,” says Domina, Corporation Counsel for Mil-waukee County since 2003, and assistant Waukesha County Corporation Counsel for 14 years prior to that.

“The bar provides support to the court, that the court finds value in, and I fear that if the bar were to become voluntary, it would become more like a trade association, and provide less of a public service function, serving less as a public policy partner with the court system than it does today.”

He further adds that there will always be a certain percentage of the bar that opposes the mandatory bar, largely because it goes against their grain to have no choice in the matter. “But I think the reality is, the mandatory bar is here today, and it will be here tomorrow. Efforts to change that are just setting the critics of the mandatory bar up for failure.”

However, the president-elect candidates are not completely at odds with Levine. He has raised an issue with regard to whether Wisconsin should abolish its so-called “Diploma Privilege,” so that graduates of the state’s law schools need not take a bar exam to practice in Wisconsin.

That rule might be “a dinosaur,” agrees Domina — although he was a beneficiary of it, and despite the fact that he believes that the state’s law school graduates are, by and large,
very able practitioners.

But Diel is not convinced: “I just don’t see an issue there. There’s an old saying: ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.’ I think that applies.”

As for Levine’s push to increase the representation of nonresident lawyers within the bar’s governance, Diel says she needs more information on the issue. On one hand, the Board of Governors is already a large body, and perhaps making it bigger isn’t a wise idea. On the other hand, she does favor representative democracy —although it might be challenging for out-of-state lawyers to find a constituency with a common voice.

She states, “It’s my understanding that the bar is currently studying the idea. I would want very much to be assured that the participation would be diverse and representative, and with those assurances, then I could support something that comes in alignment with democratic representation.”

For his part, Domina says so far he would support giving out-of-state lawyers a greater say on the Board of Governors, but he would not favor letting a nonresident lawyer run for an elected office in the association.

Further, Levine has advocated for changes to the $50 annual assessment upon active-status lawyers for the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation for civil legal services for the poor. A committee is studying the feasibility of allowing individual lawyers to choose the entity receiving their dollars, and whether nonresident lawyers who pay similar assessments in their home state bars should be exempted from an assessment here.

Diel says that she would likely support either or both proposals, if they would increase lawyers’ acceptance of the assessment.

Domina, however, says the assessment is unfair, akin to a tax on lawyers, and that proposing changes to it legitimizes its imposition. “We need to support WisTAF initiatives, and I have always been willing to donate in the past. But accessibility to the justice system and civil legal services is a societal problem, and lawyers shouldn’t be singled out to attempt to solve them,” he says.

Qualifications for the Job

The two candidates concede that some of their credentials and interests are not headline grabbing stuff — namely, bar finance and strategic planning. But they are tasks that are essential to the bar’s functioning, both now and into the future, and they are excellent qualifications.

Lately, Diel has been active on the bar’s working group tasked with proposing changes to the trust account rules. Just last week, she spoke at a public hearing before the Supreme Court about those proposed changes, and hopes that they will be adopted, making the rules less burdensome on practitioners, especially solos and small-firm lawyers. (See article Page 1 for more on the trust account public hearing.)

She is also a member of the Strategic Planning Committee, which not only defines the organization’s goals and objectives, but also, evaluates funding requests from the various entities with the association to ensure that they are in alignment with those goals and objectives. The committee rates the requests after that evaluation, and then sends them to the bar’s Finance Committee. Strategic planning can be an “esoteric” endeavor, she acknowledges. But it’s an intellectual exercise that she enjoys, and linking it to finance brings it down to earth.

Domina chairs the bar’s Finance Committee. He and his committee colleagues crunch the numbers in the bar’s $11.5 million budget, to turn the requests into funding, so that projects that benefit the legal community and the public come to fruition.

Both candidates have lengthy histories of bar involvement, with both the state and local bars, as well as other community-oriented volunteer service. Both have served on the Board of Governors for approximately eight years; and both have served on the Executive Committee, a powerful bar committee that sets the Board of Governors’ agenda and acts on its behalf between meetings when time is of the essence. Domina is a current Executive Committee member; Diel served on it in 2004. In addition, Domina is a past-president of the Waukesha County Bar Association, while Diel is a past-president of the Association for Women Lawyers. And, both consider themselves as “consensus builders” and “problem-solvers.”

With regard to what they’d do, once elected, Diel comments, “I think the day of the presidential initiative is over.” She adds that, from her work on the Strategic Planning Committee, she believes the bar’s executive officers must be in alignment with that plan. “The bar’s vision is ‘Excellence in legal services in an accessible, valued justice system.’ So, if I had a presidential initiative, it would be to continue to work on the effective implementation of that strategic plan. My goal is in this way to work toward restoring pride in being a lawyer and pride in being a member of a helping profession.”

As for Domina, he says he’s not sure that these should be called
“presidential initiatives,” meaning that they cost lots of money. But, he does have goals he’d like to pursue, should he be elected.

For starters, he believes that the average bar member is not aware of the relevance the bar plays in his or her practice. The bar offers services to lawyers experiencing crises, for example; he knows this first-hand, because an arsonist destroyed the law office of his wife, Waukesha attorney Julie Gay, last year. The bar was helpful; notably, it helped post reward money on the Crime Stoppers Arson hotline. But, had they not gone through such a loss, they would have never known that the bar performs that kind of member service.

Along these lines, the bar has a newly created Law Office Management Assistance Program, which not enough lawyers have taken advantage of, in Domina’s estimation.

And, as a government lawyer himself, as president-elect, Domina would like to reach out to other government lawyers. Many of them work in small offices, which can be a lonely position, especially when local governments are in tight financial straits, as in recent times.

In addition, Domina says he’d like to introduce greater accountability to some of the bar’s business practices, via the establishment of an audit committee to develop clear, consistent Sarbanes-Oxley-like procedures. Don’t get him wrong; it’s not that the bar is poorly administered. It’s just that Domina understands the importance of financial stability, and checks and balances, as part of an organization’s overall health, given his work for Milwaukee County.

Along these lines, he says that joining forces with Strategic Planning has improved the budgeting process tremendously, because it ensures that Finance is not considering funding requests in a vacuum. Not all funding requests were granted in the last budgeting cycle, he notes, although those making the requests were given an opportunity to re-submit proposals that were deemed on the fence, since it was the first time the process was utilized.

Is There Excess in Bar’s Budget?

Not according to both candidates.

Domina says the bar’s finances are healthy. What many members probably don’t realize, he says, is that dues income provides only about 40 percent of the bar’s revenue. The majority comes from the association’s business ventures. They also might be unaware of the fact that the Wisconsin bar is considered a model for the nation in many ways, including for its financial stability.

“I served on the (Waukesha) School Board for many years, and I am not running on a platform of cutting your taxes,” he says. “As chair of the bar’s Finance Committee, I am also not seeking a dues increase in next year’s proposed budget. And, the fact is, the bar is run very efficiently.”

Both candidates remind lawyers that the dues statement is not just bar dues; it also contains assessments required by the Supreme Court.

Diel additionally points to the budgeting process explained above, and says it ensures that all programs are in sync with the bar’s goals as an organization.

“I think the bar as a whole, particularly with the work of the Strategic Planning Committee, is really doing a great job with the budget in a way that will make sure that lawyers are getting the best value for their dues dollar that they can…The bar is supported by an extremely capable staff who delivers value.”

The bar will always have its critics, she continues, who won’t get involved and do not realize the value the bar brings — “and that’s a loss to them. I’ve always said, ‘If you’re interested in change, get involved in the organization.’ As for me, I buy the State Bar’s books. I work on its committees. I am involved in the sections. And I have found, there’s no better way to stay incredibly current and at the cutting edge of what’s happening, than working within your specialty section. It has made me a good lawyer over the years, and been a huge benefit. I invite all bar members interested in positive change to join me in working inside the bar to bring about that change.”

The Time Commitment

Other than what’s already been addressed in this article, the candidates can think of no major philosophical rifts between them.

“Probably the biggest difference between us lies in our practices and our practice styles,” says Diel. “We both have lengthy experience, and I think, respect within the community. Our bios show who we are and what we do, and some will value private practice over government experience, and some won’t. Although, as a private practitioner, I have the luxury of being able to set my own schedule and priorities,” she says.

That might be true, but Domina is confident that he could give the job the ample attention it requires, while keeping his job and
balancing family obligations. He has spoken to Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and County Board Chairman Lee Holloway and has been reassured that both approve of him seeking the post. They additionally agreed that if a conflict would ever arise, his legal practice comes first and he would have to recuse himself.

It’s not unprecedented for a government lawyer to serve as State Bar president, while working full-time, he continues. Sherwood K. Zink did so, quite effectively, in the 1990s. Domina believes that, if elected, his service will demonstrate to other government lawyers that they can be full participants in the bar.

Both candidates say they are looking forward to the race, and the opportunity it will bring to meet lawyers from across the state, and to raise their awareness of the issues. The candidates plan on visiting several local and specialty bar associations, preferably side-by-side, and they expect the discourse to be highly collegial.

Voting begins in April, with the winner typically being announced at the month’s end. The term of office as president-elect begins July 1.