Kirchner a constant at Federal Courthouse

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For nearly 20 years, career judicial law clerk Margo Kirchner has been a fixture in the United States Courthouse in Milwaukee.

Over the years, she has moved between clerking for almost every federal judge on the court.

After graduating law school in 1991, she began her legal career serving two years as a term law clerk for then-district court judge Terence T. Evans. After several years in private practice in Phoenix, she returned to clerk for Judge Evans after his appointment to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since then, she’s clerked for Judge Robert W. Warren, Judge Lynn Adelman, and Judge William C. Griesbach. Since 2003, she has clerked for Judge Charles N. Clevert.

The duties of a career law clerk vary, depending on the judge. But in general, a career law clerk helps train the term clerks, conducts legal research, is responsible for case management and drafts decisions and orders. In short, Kirchner said, “a career law clerk makes sure that whatever needs to be done, is done, before the case goes to the court.”

And since cases may be pending longer than the one or two years that a term clerk serves, the career clerks provide efficiency that would be lost getting new clerks up to speed on complex cases.

“I came back to clerk for Judge Evans when he joined the Seventh Circuit because it was such a great opportunity,” Kirchner said. “I stayed because clerking provided a more predictable schedule after my first child was born.” Kirchner has two children, one a teenager and one in first grade, and her husband works in a local law firm.

Kirchner is also a former president of the Association for Women Lawyers, one of the largest specialty bar groups in Wisconsin, with more than 425 members. As president, Kirchner was responsible for running AWL’s monthly meetings and programs, which include CLE programs, career development programs, and AWL’s annual Women Judges’ Night, one of the Milwaukee legal community’s largest annual events.

Kirchner is also a violist in the Concord Chamber Orchestra, an all-volunteer orchestra that draws musicians from, and plays, throughout the Milwaukee area.

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