Commentary: Ruling sets bar for full payment
Last year in this column, I raised the question of whether the costs for violating a court order, including attorney fees, would constitute “continuing contempt” in order to assure that a victim would be made whole. (“When is Contempt Continuing?” Wisconsin Law Journal, Aug. 24, 2009.) While not directly addressing the issue of continuing contempt, […]
Commentary: BP money could mean murky waters
The continuing ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been the subject of a lot of discussion. A tax lawyer, however, will also start thinking about the tax consequences that may flow from the disaster. In the past several weeks, it was announced that BP would establish a substantial fund to ensure that all […]
Commentary: Follow the money, find the fraud
Forensic accounting has been around for decades, but only in the last ten years have people become aware of the profession on a wide scale. Many of the techniques used by forensic accountants to investigate fraud and analyze the numbers are the same today as they were decades ago. Computers have made things easier, as […]
Commentary: Silver Lining in the Cloud
Microsoft recently launched the suite of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 tools and services to business customers, and, at the same time, announced its Office Web Apps strategy. Office applications are a huge part of Microsoft’s revenue, and the software giant currently owns about eighty-five percent of the business productivity solutions market. That’s a huge […]
Law firms: Produce value or perish
For the past two decades, according to the Association of Corporate Counsel, there has been an unrelenting drive by companies and their suppliers to reduce costs while increasing quality and value in their products and services. The only outlier seems to be law firms. This observation seemingly is confirmed in a recent issue of the […]
Commentary: Raging rhetoric can overshadow issues
We’ve all experienced it: You receive a motion, you begin to read its supporting brief, and the words slap your eyes: “spurious,” “not worthy of belief,” “incredible,” “utterly without foundation,” “wholesale abdication.” And that’s just the first page. Many lawyers believe that a brief must contain extremely aggressive language to be convincing to the court. […]
Commentary: Family law still needs to follow rules
Every once in a while, it seems, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals needs to remind trial courts that family-law cases are really lawsuits. While they differ from other areas of law in certain ways, namely the familiarity of the parties with each other, they are still court proceedings and as a result, certain rules apply […]
Bio
Diane Slomowitz is a shareholder with the law firm of Fox, O’Neill & Shannon, SC in Milwaukee. She concentrates her practice on legal research, legal writing and appellate brief writing for the firm’s business and individual clients. Diane can be reached at 414-273-3939 or [email protected].
Commentary: Outdated Concepts of the Guild
Lawyers risk discipline for using traditional marketing tactics to reach prospective clients. The rules of professional conduct are replete with restrictions on marketing, advertising, solicitation, the use of social media, and more. Bar associations will not provide professional education credit to lawyers for programs on how to be profitable, let alone how to be more […]
Red flags pointed directly to Madoff
It’s hard to believe that a Ponzi scheme as massive as the one perpetrated by Bernard Madoff got by anyone. Surely he was the most clever criminal alive, and was ingenious at hiding his fraud. There couldn’t have been any signs of the scam he was running. Or were there? It turns out there were […]
Commentary: Interviewing pitfalls
Last summer, an Internet article on msn.careerbuilder.com offered a list of forty-three remarks made by applicants during an interview which gave pause to human resources. Some of these remarks were an obvious reason to bar employment, including the following: I’ve never heard such a stupid question. Can we wrap this up quickly? I have someplace […]
Commentary: Addressing employee misconduct: Another option
It is not uncommon for an employer to discover that it is the victim of an illegal scheme involving a rogue employee. Is it a viable option for that employer to report the matter to the federal government? Consider the following hypothetical, which assumes that the company does not have mandatory reporting requirements: A national […]
Legal News
- Outside the RNC, small Milwaukee businesses and their regulars tried to salvage a sluggish week
- Biden called to resign immediately after the president announces he won’t seek reelection
- Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Harris
- Local PA cops allegedly thought Trump’s would-be assassin was Secret Service
- Biden-Lead Secret Service admits agency denied past requests by Trump’s campaign for tighter security
- Class action filed against Walgreens
- Former Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant pleads guilty to smuggling contraband
- Two dead, one injured after Ozaukee County water rescue
- RNC Final Day: Trump accepts GOP Nomination
- Wisconsin officials intervene in Planned Parenthood action
- 7th Circuit adopts modifications to Rules 31, 34, 40, 47 and 60
- MPD issues statement on outside agency officer assignments
Case Digests
- Ineffective Assistance of Counsel; Double Jeopardy; Sentencing
- Ineffective Assistance of Counsel; Sexual Assault-Prosecutorial Misconduct
- Contract-Negligence
- Criminal Law; Juvenile Law; Discovery
- Family Law; Child Support; Property Division First paragraph(s)
- Ineffective Assistance of Counsel- Exclusion of Evidence of Witness Bias
- Postconviction Relief-Sentencing-Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
- 14th Amendment – Due Process
- Criminal-Sentencing Guidelines – Enhancement
- Bankruptcy-Tax
- Civil Rights – 14th Amendment-Jury Instructions
- Contract; Foreclosure and Property