Milwaukee County Circuit Court candidates to face off at forum

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Even as a battle rages for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, candidates are vying for perhaps less prominent but still important positions in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

Candidates for the court’s Branch 31, Branch 44 and Branch 45 will face off from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Milwaukee Bar Association, 424 E. Wells St.

For the Branch 31 opening, the candidates are Hannah Dugan, a lawyer at the Law Offices of Hannah Dugan, and Judge Paul Rifelj, the incumbent.

Dugan practices elder, disability, veterans, business and non-profit law. She opened her firm in 2010.

Dugan is also a referee in attorney-discipline cases that go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She was previously a litigation attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee and an attorney at Legal Aid of Wisconsin.

Dugan has also been a law professor at Marquette University Law School. She earned her law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1987.

Judge Rifelj was appointed to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court bench by Gov. Scott Walker in December. Before that, he was a public defender at the State Public Defender’s Office in Wauwatosa and a private-sector defense attorney.

He earned his law degree from UW Law School in 2003.

Branch 44, meanwhile, has only candidate running: Gwen Connolly, a trial lawyer who has run her own law firm, the Office of Gwendolyn Connolly, since 2001. Connolly practices family and consumer-protection law.

She is also a court commissioner and has taught at Marquette University Law School. Before starting her own practice, she worked for eight years as an associate at two Milwaukee firms. Connolly earned her law degree from Drake University Law School, Des Moines, Iowa, in 1993.

As for Branch 45, its open seat is being vied for by Judge Michelle Ackerman Havas, the incumbent, and Jean Kies, an attorney who practices civil, juvenile, family and criminal defense law.

Havas was appointed to the Milwaukee Circuit Court bench in August by Walker. She replaced Justice Rebecca Bradley, whom Walker appointed to the District 1 Court of Appeals.

Before that, she was an assistant district attorney, a commercial litigator at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek and an account manager with Westlaw. Havas earned her law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1998. Before becoming an attorney, she was a legal secretary at the Wisconsin Department of Justice and a parole and probation agent for the Department of Corrections.

Kies, for her part, has run her own firm, Law Offices of Jean Kies, for more than 20 years. Kies earned her law degree from Marquette in 1991. Follow @erikastrebel