Anne E. Ross

Listen to this article

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So wrote Arthur C. Clarke, the late English physicist and science fiction author.

Madison lawyer Anne E. Ross is a kindred soul. Ross decided back when computers took up the space of the average refrigerator that she would devote her legal career to advancing the interests of technology companies, and therefore, technology as a whole.

A lifelong Madisonian, Ross left only to attend law school at Stanford.

“I enjoyed the atmosphere in the Silicon Valley high-tech community, and saw the potential for my hometown to develop a similar business environment based on the biotechnology and other science being developed at the University of Wisconsin,” she says. “Upon graduation, I was fortunate to get an offer from Foley to practice in Madison.”

As anticipated, the job has presented the opportunity to help grow the area’s technology sector, through her representation not only of technology companies, but also, venture capital funds and other private investors.

Ross co-founded Accelerate Madison in 2001, and has been involved in a number of other nonprofit enterprises organized to promote the growth and success of technology companies in Wisconsin. She’s also had extensive involvement in the insurance and financial services industries, both as outside counsel and as a board member of several insurance companies and one bank.

In addition to a thriving practice, Ross recently became the managing partner of the firm’s Madison office. She is the first woman to hold that position — but blazing trails is not a new experience for Ross, as she was the first woman lawyer hired in the Madison branch.

“I honestly didn’t dream that I’d be managing Foley’s Madison Office at this time last year, to say nothing of at the time I chose to go into a legal career,” she says.

Ross has always devoted a large portion of her nonbillable time to mentoring other women. “I’ve always chafed against the notion that one’s opportunities should be limited by one’s gender,” she says. “I came of age during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when equal opportunities for women was by no means a universally accepted concept in our country.

“When I started practicing law in 1981, the glass ceiling was still very much in evidence in the legal profession. I think it’s hard for young women entering the profession today to understand how much this has changed during the lifetimes of the more senior women in the profession.