Wisconsin Law Journal – WI Legal News & Resources Wisconsin Legal News & Resources

Under Wisconsin law, a 17-year-old is considered an “adult” for the purpose of criminal prosecution.

Tagged with: Anthony Cotton On the Defensive

On the same day that Rebecca Bradley was appointed to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals released her first appellate opinion that has been recommended for publication.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Child Pornography Jean DiMotto Wisconsin Court of Appeals Wisconsin Supreme Court

With Gov. Scott Walker still best known for his Act 10 law that substantially curbed the collective-bargaining rights of most public employees, few might remember that his actual first priority upon taking office in 2011 was tort reform.

Tagged with: Act 10 punitive damages

WEST BEND, Wis. (AP) — A West Bend couple woke to a frightening surprise over the weekend: http://bit.ly/1Q2bIpk

A federal judge in Akron, Ohio, had an attorney arrested at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland on Thursday afternoon after the attorney did not show up to a morning hearing: http://bit.ly/1ipYGTY

Seventeen years old is certainly old enough to get into trouble with the law.

Tagged with: Jerry Petrowski juvenile court

Of course Gov. Scott Walker unilaterally appointed his favorite candidate to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving her the huge advantage of incumbency in next spring's election.

Tagged with: Patrick Crooks Rebecca Bradley Wisconsin Supreme Court

A recent encounter with opposing counsel in a very terse and contentious case got me thinking about the (over)use of the word “frivolous.”

Tagged with: Nate Cade On Ethics

Forty or 60 years may seem like a generously 
long amount of time to re-record an easement, 
but for many Wisconsin property owners who are unaware of Wisconsin’s re-recording statute time is of the essence.

Tagged with: Easements

A Connecticut jury has rejected a woman's bid to sue her 12-year-old nephew for injuries she says she suffered from his exuberant greeting at his birthday party four years ago: http://bit.ly/1PrB8eR

In a case of reckless homicide by text messages, a defendant sought to suppress evidence of the messages themselves. The trial court denied his motion and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Jean DiMotto Kathryn Foster Lisa Neubauer

With the resurgence of the retail real estate market, national retailers are more active than ever.

Just because former Gov. Tommy Thompson did it, doesn't mean Gov. Scott Walker should.

Tagged with: Patrick Crooks Scott Walker

Expenses in a law firm can be predicted with greater certainty than revenues, because in a professional practice setting, the expenses tend to be limited in kind and repetitive.

Tagged with: Ed Poll Lawbiz Coaches Corner

In recent years, some of the biggest cases before the United States Supreme Court have dealt with how Fourth Amendment protections should apply in modern circumstances.

Tagged with: Anthony Cotton Fourth Amendment On the Defensive

A sheriff apologized Thursday to a pair of female lawyers who were told they needed to take off their underwire bras at jail to avoid setting off the metal detector if they wanted to talk to their incarcerated clients.

With the onset of fall, the kids are back in school and football has begun.

Tagged with: Nate Cade On Ethics

In this age of cyberspace incivility, do remarks on Facebook that impugn a person’s reputation and character constitute defamation?

Tagged with: Bench Blog Facebook Social media

In a case that saw a woman injured while trying to pull her dog from the jaws of a pit bull, a judge’s unrequested jury instruction concerning the emergency doctrine and unrequested restructuring of the verdict form's damages section led to a remand for a new trial.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Jean DiMotto Lisa Stark

A Mequon lawyer is free on $10,000 bail after his arrest on potential charges of sexually assaulting a beer cart attendant during a golf outing: http://bit.ly/1Oa91hn

In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed down a 4-2 decision that brought to a halt a John Doe investigation into whether Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, during the 2012 recall election, worked illegally with outside groups. Two of the justices who ruled with the majority — David Prosser and Michael Gableman — had previously been asked to recuse themselves.

Tagged with: Brendan Fischer John Doe investigation Rick Esenberg

The nightmare is finally over. You know the one: It's the first day of law-school exams, and you realize that not only have you have slept through your alarm, you have also forgotten to attend class — throughout the entire semester. You wake up as you burst into the exam room, where your classmates have just finished typing their final answers. You have failed. You'll never be an attorney.

Tagged with: Law school Wisconsin Association for Justice

Americans are over-legislated, a fact that partly explains why we incarcerate more people than any other country on the planet.

Tagged with: Anthony Cotton On the Defensive

As we suspected, a state audit released last week found no major problems with Wisconsin's nonpartisan Government Accountability Board, which handles ethics complaints and supervises state elections.

Tagged with: G.A.B.

In the past decade, technological innovation has occurred faster than ever before, creating opportunities that construction industry professionals never could have imagined.

A medical-malpractice case — an area of litigation replete with expert testimony — recently spurred the Court of Appeals to examine how Daubert principles should be applied to medical experts.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Daubert Jean DiMotto

What are the most important words in a dictionary? For lawyers, the most important words deal with accounting.

Tagged with: Ed Poll Lawbiz Coaches Corner

When his Republican colleagues were stuffing the state budget with non-fiscal policies that didn't belong there, state Sen. Rob Cowles wisely objected.

Tagged with: G.A.B.

Can a jury consider the training and experience of a semi-trailer truck driver in determining his negligence? Is a commercially licensed truck driver held to higher standard of care when a semi-trailer is involved in a collision?

Tagged with: Bench Blog Brian Blanchard Jean DiMotto Pat Roggensack Wisconsin Supreme Court

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel spoke at an open government forum on Wednesday at a Madison hotel. It had been arranged before the effort to gut the open records law took place just before the Fourth of July weekend, but that episode made the forum all the more timely.

Tagged with: Brad Schimel open records law