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Haas has the makeup of an attorney

By: Alex Zank//June 7, 2017//

Haas has the makeup of an attorney

By: Alex Zank//June 7, 2017//

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Elizabeth Haas | Foley & Lardner (Staff photo by Kevin Harnack)
Elizabeth Haas | Foley & Lardner (Staff photo by Kevin Harnack)

Although Elizabeth Haas has shown her mettle time and time again, she’s not done making a difference.

Haas, a partner at Foley & Lardner, said she decided early on — in high school, in fact — that she wanted to pursue a career in the law.

“That was motivated by several factors, including being exposed to several fantastic lawyers growing up,” she said.

During high school, Haas followed around some lawyers at Foley & Lardner and even spent two summers of her college years working as an intern at the firm.

“That just kind of kept reaffirming my position to become a lawyer,” said Haas, a commercial and antitrust litigator.

What she particularly likes about her work are its challenges, which can involve complicated legal issues and econometrics.

One case stands out at as being particularly noteworthy. Haas said she spent about six years working to unravel a complex scheme to defraud banks and other companies. She called it a “one-in-a-lifetime case.”

Ultimately, the team was able to get good results for its client.

“I sort of cut my teeth on that as an associate counsel,” Haas said, noting that she was promoted to partner just as the case was wrapping up.

Through her work, Haas has become an expert in the use of e-discovery. She said that in a world where so many tasks can be performed electronically, she can find herself using things as diverse as text messages, databases and PDFs to gather the documents needed for a particular case.

And because Haas tends to work on complex matters, she constantly has to carry out discovery procedures using electronic means. For that reason, it should be no surprise that she’s frequently asked to lecture about these matters. The keys to e-discovery, she said, are knowing how to present everything in a way that makes sense to others and staying on top of changes in technology.

Haas is also active in a number of community organizations, namely the Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee, a non-profit group that supports social-change initiatives for women and girls. Then there’s the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Showhouse, a non-profit group that raises money for breast and prostate-cancer research at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

She was also recently elected to the Milwaukee Bar Association’s Board of Directors and is active in the American Bar Association.

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