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

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

Tamara B. Packard, an attorney at Cullen Weston Pines & Bach, and Michael Dean, a lawyer whose main office is in Brookfield, battle over the question: Should language banning same-sex marriage by removed from the state constitution?

Tagged with: gay marriage

When her son turned 2 years old earlier this year, L’erin Dobra had the typical quandary — choosing a birthday party theme. Pirate? Firefighter? Superhero? Harry Potter? ... Personal injury lawyer? http://bit.ly/1OyM8UW

Gov. Scott Walker understands the danger of anonymous electioneering.

Tagged with: campaign finance laws Scott Walker Wisconsin Supreme Court

America has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. As a society, we should have the courage to recognize that doubling down on a failed system is not a means of making our communities safer.

Tagged with: Anthony Cotton On the Defensive

The now-defunct New York firm of Dewey & LeBouef collapsed for many reasons. One of those, it is clear now, was that the now-former partners ignored their responsibilities to the firm and to each other.

Tagged with: Nate Cade On Ethics Rules of Professional Conduct

Victory has a thousand fathers, the saying goes, but defeat is an orphan.

Tagged with: open records law

A criminal defense attorney has been arrested and charged under suspicion of smuggling cocaine into a Costa Rica prison in his anal cavity: http://bit.ly/1Snihj3

From high atop their perch on the bench, judges seem like masters of their domain, making decisions and occasionally creating laws that have a real-world impact on the peons in front of them. So there is some natural schadenfreude when judges find themselves at the mercy of a court, especially when they are accused of abusing their judicial authority: http://bit.ly/1O1Bohj

The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals in a decision that would have remanded a case to the circuit court in order to expose a drunken driver to a higher maximum sentence.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Brian Blanchard drunken driving Gary Sherman Jean DiMotto JoAnne Kloppenburg Patrick Crooks Wisconsin Supreme Court

The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage isn't going to end the debate, but those fighting the ruling don't have demographics on their side. Young people overwhelmingly support the right of gays and lesbians to have the legal right to marry.

Tagged with: gay marriage U.S. Supreme Court

Of the 1.6 million military members who are now veterans, about 670,000 have been deemed to have a disability that is connected to their military service.

Tagged with: Anthony Cotton On the Defensive PTSD

An appeals court has agreed with an Ohio woman who said her parking citation should be tossed because the village law was missing a comma.

When a mid-state newspaper made a full-court press for the release of employee notes that were taken down during a school district’s disciplinary investigation, the Court of Appeals took the opportunity to construe an exception to the public-records law.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Brian Blanchard Court of Appeals Jean DiMotto open records law

Antonin Scalia didn't mince words in his dissenting opinion on Friday's Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. And now, with Mother Jones' handy Scalia Insult Generator™, you can create your own: http://bit.ly/1IixwJ2

Kenosha police who responded to a burglary call got a little surprise: They arrived to find the suspect hog-tied with a hose: http://bit.ly/1fwrcme