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Justices vote to have public hearing on petition to increase pro hac vice fees

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//December 11, 2017//

Justices vote to have public hearing on petition to increase pro hac vice fees

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//December 11, 2017//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court will be holding a public hearing on a proposal to increase the fees out-of-state lawyers pay to appear in the state’s courts.

The Access to Justice Commission filed a petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court in September proposing increasing the pro hac vice application fee from $250 to $300.

Of the current fees, which the Office of Lawyer Regulation collects, the OLR and the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation each receive $100. The remaining $50 goes to the ATJ commission, which nets $30,000 on average to put toward its operations.

The commission is a 17-person body that works to ensure poor Wisconsin residents have access to the civil-justice system. The group’s operations had been paid for by a State Bar reserve fund that ran out over the summer. Without an increase in pro hac vice fees, the commission will be facing a budget shortfall .

The justices voted last week to send the proposal to a public hearing, said Supreme Court Commissioner Julie Rich. They also issued a notice on Dec. 6 seeking comments from the public on the proposal.

The court’s actions come on the heels of the State Bar of Wisconsin’s agreeing to back the petition.

At its meeting on Dec. 1, the bar’s board of governors, who are elected representatives of the state’s lawyers, voted to support the ATJ commission’s proposal.

Ahead of the vote, ATJ commission director Jim Gramling gave a presentation on the proposal and said he would be willing to make a change suggested by the Native American liaison on the board, Starlyn Tourtillot.

She said the increased fee could be burdensome for those attorneys and that other states had already carved out an exception for out-of-state tribal attorneys.

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