Donald Leo Bach

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When lawyers see problems with legal procedures, they can ask the state Supreme Court to solve those issues. Any lawyer can petition the Supreme Court for a rules change.

Donald Leo Bach has used that process several times while trying to address things he’s seen as problems. He acknowledges that sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

Bach’s most recent victory came Jan. 11 of this year when the Supreme Court agreed to include a comment in the statutes that settlements reached through alternative dispute resolution should be finalized in writing. The court made an allowance for family law cases, which need to be approved by a judge before they are final.

Bach heads the environmental law section at DeWitt Ross & Stevens S.C. in Madison. He also practices business litigation and defends companies in consumer litigation.

A few years back, Bach saw a problem he thought the court should address.

“There was some big confusion in the law as to what kinds of settlements needed to be in writing and what did not,” Bach said.

He approached the Supreme Court in an effort to “prevent the problem that has come up numerous times in Wisconsin law where people made oral agreements and have been able to back out of them.”

The 1974 University of Wisconsin Law School graduate has approached the Supreme Court on other issues as well. When justices were considering massive changes to the Rules of Professional Conduct, Bach approached them about another problem that kept arising. Lawyers were unsure whether they could talk with former employees of companies they were litigating against.

Courts all over the country had issued conflicting decisions about whether the practice violated legal ethics. Last July, the court issued a decision outlining when lawyers can speak to former employees and under what circumstances.

Not every effort has been successful. Awhile back, Bach approached the Supreme Court asking that representations made during depositions be binding on the parties. However, he withdrew that petition when it resulted in strong opposition.

Bach also tried to patch some procedural holes during his five-year tenure in former Gov. Tommy Thompson’s administration, where he served as legal counsel and acting chief of staff. He helped develop written procedures for screening applications for pardon, and for handling bills from the time they were approved until the governor signed them.

Bach noted that prior to those efforts there were no formal, written procedures for those processes.