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Milwaukee litigator bends to the needs of her job

By: Jack Zemlicka, [email protected]//March 2, 2012//

Milwaukee litigator bends to the needs of her job

By: Jack Zemlicka, [email protected]//March 2, 2012//

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Kathy Nusslock (Staff photo by Kevin Harnack)

Life as a litigator can be tense, but attorney Kathy Nusslock finds necessary relief in her second career as a substitute Pilates teacher.

The Davis & Kuelthau SC litigator dabbled in the therapeutic exercise for several years as a release from the daily legal grind. In 2009, Nusslock, 57, completed a Pilates training course and last November, she received her teaching certification at a training studio in Boulder, Colo.

“I teach classes and privates, but only on a substitute basis,” she said. “Time doesn’t permit more than that, but it’s fun.”

As head of Davis & Kuelthau’s Litigation Group and chair of the Employment Litigation Practice Group, Nusslock guides associates in those areas while handling a full complement of cases.

The Marquette University Law School graduate is also the firm’s pro bono coordinator and is the primary attorney who handles military and veteran legal needs.

After spending the first 13 years of her legal career at Cook & Franke SC in Milwaukee, Nusslock joined Davis & Kuelthau in 1998.

In 2010, she joined, among others, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti as a recipient of the Justice William Brennan Award from the National Trial Advocacy College, University of Virginia School of Law.

She cited the honor as career highlight in this week’s Asked & Answered.

Wisconsin Law Journal: If you could develop one CLE course for credit, what would it be about?
Kathy Nusslock: The art of persuasion.

WLJ: What was your least favorite course in law school and why?
Nusslock: Partnership taxation, which I ended up dropping. The course work was more technical than I felt I would need in my eventual practice. I was in way over my head.

WLJ: What do you consider your biggest achievement to date and why?
Nusslock: I was thrilled to be invited to join the faculty of the National Trial Advocacy College at the University of Virginia Law School in 1996 and the recipient of the Brennan Award in 2010 from that program. This is one of the premiere trial advocacy courses and I was honored by the invitation.

WLJ: What is the one luxury item you cannot live without?
Nusslock: The dry cleaner; I never want to iron again.

WLJ: What is one thing attorneys should know that they won’t learn in law school?
Nusslock: The marketing aspects of being in private practice. I think when we go to law school, we think, ‘OK, we’re going to do well, get a job in a law firm and that’s going to be it.’ What we’re not taught, at least when I went, is what it really means to run a business.

WLJ: What is the first concert you went to?
Nusslock: Three Dog Night in 1970. It was an inside show maybe at the MECCA Arena in Milwaukee. It was a great show. I was 16 years old and was there with a bunch of friends and we were having a good time.

WLJ: If you could trade places with someone for a day, who would it be and why?
Nusslock: Anyone who can carry a tune, so I finally would be able to sing when other people were in listening range.

WLJ: What is your motto?
Nusslock: I don’t know that I have a personal motto. I think I prefer part of the motto of
the Girl Scouts: ‘To foster community, integrity and respect for diversity, in all things,’
including the practice of law.

WLJ: What is your favorite movie about lawyers or the law and why?
Nusslock: ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ because against all odds and public pressure Atticus Finch stands up for and defends someone who is not capable of standing up for and defending himself.  Alternatively, ‘My Cousin Vinny’ because of the courtroom scenes.

WLJ: If you hadn’t become a lawyer, what career would you have chosen?
Nusslock: It depends upon whether I need to pick a career that would enable me to support myself, as opposed to winning the lottery or otherwise becoming independently wealthy. I am a certified Pilates instructor and occasionally have visions of opening my own studio, but like other things, I suspect the reality of having to run a small business is not as attractive as the vision of doing so.

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