Thomas S. Sleik

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Attorney Thomas S. Sleik spent the summer of 1989 flying to California, where he’d take a week-long series of depositions. Then he’d fly home and prepare for another week of depositions in the Golden State. He repeated the process five times.

Because the case he was involved in, Le Claire v. Yamaha, consumed all his time, he couldn’t take on other clients. The case was in its second year, and credit cards played a major role in the support of his family.

The gamble paid off with a $4 million verdict. It’s the largest a La Crosse County jury has rendered. Previously, the record was $420,000. Eighteen years after Le Claire, it’s still the largest jury verdict in the county.

Sleik left his hometown only to attend college and law school at Marquette, which he did in six years. His firm, a fixture in La Crosse since 1919, needed a litigator and Sleik immediately established himself as a tough courtroom opponent, in both civil and family law. (He has since concentrated in family law, and was president of the Wisconsin Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in 2000.)

Le Claire’s timing made it even more challenging. Immediately before taking the case, he was elected to the State Bar of Wisconsin Board of Governors and served for two terms. He then ran for State Bar president after Le Claire concluded.

At the time, the bar was anticipating reintegration, a task he helped lead as president-elect, president in 1992-93, and then past-president.

Sleik observes that he’s a little perplexed that, a decade and a half later, the bar’s integration remains an issue.

“I’m sad for people who think of the mandatory bar as a bad thing,” Sleik says. “There are so many ways the bar can help your practice: by participating in a section, or attending a CLE session. The networking especially is so valuable. In the Family Law Section, for example, I always marvel at the quality of the questions on the list serve and the information exchanged. I don’t understand how someone could not see the value of that — either they don’t want to see it, or they’ve never experienced it.”

As bar president, he and the late Daniel Hildebrandt, bar president the year before Sleik, led the push for a pro bono coordinator. It’s safe to say that, since then, hundreds of Wisconsin low-income residents have found pro bono lawyers through the bar.