Godfrey & Kahn attorney among new AG’s appointments

Wisconsin Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul recently announced various appointments to the state Department of Justice.

Kaul announced Friday that he had tapped the Godfrey & Kahn attorney Eric Wilson, who earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1994, to be a deputy attorney general. Wilson has also been an assistant prosecutor at the state DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago.

Kaul also announced that he had appointed Ashley Viste, who was his campaign manager, to be his chief of staff and that Gillian Drummond, his senior campaign advisor, would be his communications director. Drummond last year led communications for then-Judge Rebecca Dallet’s campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice.

Kaul said he’d be retaining two of outgoing Attorney General Brad Schimel’s appointees, leaving Michelle Viste in place as director of the Office of Crime Victim Services and Kristen Devitt as director of the Office of School Safety.

Kaul announced on Sunday he was promoting two DOJ employees. Charlotte Gibson will be Kaul’s director of the Division of Legal Services. She has been an assistant attorney general since 2001 and director of the special litigation and appeals unit since 2011. She earned her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1999.

Tina Virgil, who has been with the state DOJ for 26 years, will be Kaul’s new director of the Division of Law Enforcement Services. Virgil was most recently director of the DOJ’s Special Investigations Bureau.