Butler, first black state Justice, retiring by end of July

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Louis Butler, the first black man to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, announced on Monday that he plans to retire from full-time legal practice by the end of July.

Butler, who has been doing trial and appellate litigation and mediation and arbitration work at DeWitt LLP since 2016, was on the state’s high court from 2004 to 2008. Several of his rulings there made him a target of right-leaning groups who were trying to wrest control of the court.

Perhaps most inflammatory to conservatives was Butler’s decision in Thomas v. Mallet, in which he found that a plaintiff in a case involving lead-paint poisoning could pursue a lawsuit against paint manufacturers without proving which one specifically had made the product that had caused him harm. Critics worried the ruling would expose businesses to a nearly unlimited amount of liability.

Butler went on to lose his re-election bid to Michael Gableman amid a campaign marred by a particularly egregious, and inaccurate, attack ad. Despite the controversy of those years, Butler ranks his time on the court as one of the highlights of his legal career, he said on Monday.

Also up there is the time he appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court as a litigator in a case questioning whether publicly appointed defense lawyers who think their clients are making frivolous appeals are duty-bound to state exactly why they think so.

“As a litigator, once you’ve had the experience of arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, you get the feeling that you’ve been to the mountaintop,” Butler said. “Now what do you do?”

Butler graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1977. Over the ensuing 40 years, he would work as everything from a public defender to a municipal judge for the city of Milwaukee, to a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, Supreme Court justice and private litigator. After losing to Gableman, Butler taught for several years at UW’s law school before joining the now-defunct firm of Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan in 2011 and then moving on to DeWitt.

Another highlight of his career, he said, has been the work he has done over the years for various independent legal organizations, including the National Judicial College, a group that provides learning opportunities to judges from around the world.

“You learn as much as from other judges as you impart,” Butler said, “because of all the different ways people have of doing things around the world.”

Butler, who plans to stay in the Milwaukee area and continue working with legal organizations, said he has not been planning his retirement for long; he just knew now was the right time.

“You make these decisions as you reflect on things and where you want to be with your life,” Butler said. “I’m at the point where I wanted to spend more time with my wife and my children and grandchildren.”