Commentary: Arguments aplenty at state bar convention

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A remarkable coincidence occurred on May 6.

Governor Jim Doyle announced that the billion-dollar, high-speed train from Milwaukee to nowhere would be redirected to run from Milwaukee to the architectural train wreck that is the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison.

On the same day, lawyers were gathered at the convention center/train wreck for the State Bar of Wisconsin’s annual convention.

I had a lovely time at the convention, as I always do. Kudos to the Bar for yet another highly successful event.

My favorite part of the convention is that, when you put that many lawyers in a room, they are going to argue about anything and everything. And I love to argue.

I had an argument with one of our Supreme Court justices about whether or not you can cite, as persuasive authority, an authored but unpublished opinion that was heard by only one judge of the Court of Appeals instead of a three-judge panel (you can do so, and yes, I was the winner of that argument).

We had arguments about whether attorneys have a duty to perform pro bono or whether people who always manage to find the coin to pay their plumber should find a way to do the same when they need legal services.

We argued about whether the Bar should be mandatory or voluntary.

We argued about whether it is a good idea to sue former clients for unpaid fees.

We argued about whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s choice of law analysis in Beloit Liquidating Trust v. Grade, 2004 WI 39, 270 Wis.2d 356, 677 N.W.2d 356, was a travesty or merely an outrage.

We argued about whether, in a world where people are hungry, it is a gross act of social irresponsibility for organic farmers to take valuable farmland and deliberately use inefficient methods of production, just so they can charge stupid rich people four times what the food is actually worth.

And for some reason, two attorneys even had an argument about whether I actually believe everything I write in The Dark Side, or whether I just write this stuff to be provocative.

But the most common argument concerned the convention center itself.

Some attorneys argued adamantly that the center is an architectural nightmare.

Others, myself included, argued that it is not a nightmare at all, but that it is a very real architectural train wreck.

Of course, there are many subarguments within the larger argument. For example, which is the worst maze? Is it the 16 blocks to Wilson St. that you have to navigate just to get to the parking lot from John Nolen Drive, even though the center’s address is One John Nolen Drive?

Or the Byzantine parking structure? Or the three-quarters of a mile you have to navigate just to get from the main ballroom to the nearest bathroom?

As a general rule, the older the attorney, the more likely he or she is to say the bathroom maze is the worst.

The most remarkable thing, though, was that there was one attorney who seriously argued that the convention center is neither a nightmare nor a train wreck, but a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.

Which just goes to show there is no position so patently absurd that you can’t find some attorney somewhere willing to argue it.