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

Wisconsin added another chapter to its litigious history of skirmishes with lawmakers over releasing copies of public records under the state's open-records law last week.

We legally defend, with our tax dollars, our elected officials when they are sued for actions taken as part of their official duties. That's only natural and fair; the elected official shouldn't be personally liable for good-faith discharge of his or her duties.

Tagged with: Dale Kooyenga

The Wisconsin Legislature has made important new rules for civil litigation, implemented new periods of limitations and repose, and made other significant changes to state law.

Tagged with: Civil Procedure

We lost two outstanding Americans last week — nationally, former first lady Barbara Bush, and here in Wisconsin, the trailblazing civil rights champion Vel Phillips.

Tagged with: Vel Phillips

Truth is stranger than fiction. The compelling facts in State v. Torres arose in Sheboygan County in 2014. Dorian Torres was the son of divorced parents, Emilio and Shelly.

Tagged with: Search and Seizure

Gov. Scott Walker tweeted a warning to fellow Republicans on Election Night last week: "Tonight's results show we are at risk of a (hashtag) #BlueWave in WI. The Far Left is driven by anger & hatred — we must counter it with optimism & organization."

Tagged with: Michael Screnock Rebecca Dallet

In a state with a mandatory bar, it’s perhaps inevitable that the dues lawyers must pay to practice law should become a subject of debate from time to time. Wisconsin has been no stranger to these controversies. In recent years, ...

Tagged with: Closing Arguments Jon Erik Kingstad Keller Keller dues Michelle Behnke

Anyone needing further proof of the need to reform Wisconsin's juvenile corrections system was given 18.9 million reasons last week.

Tagged with: DOC settlement Sydni Briggs

The courts have been busy lately reviewing federal trademark law. Understanding new decisions and recent trends is important for all growing businesses, since company brands, logos, and slogans are oftentimes their most valuable assets.

Tagged with: Intellectual Property

Adams Outdoor Advertising leased three billboards near the Dane County Regional Airport. Before the expiration of the lease, Adams Outdoor Advertising sought to renew it.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Jean DiMotto

Even by the low standards that President Trump has set for selecting his judicial nominees, Gordon Giampietro, the president's pick to fill an open federal judgeship for Wisconsin's Eastern District, is an exceptionally bad prospect.

Tagged with: Gordon Giampietro

In the wake of yet another mass shooting at a school — this one in Parkland, Fla., leaving 14 students and three staff members dead — President Donald Trump floated several proposals in response to the violence.

Tagged with: Donald Trump firearms guns Second Amendment

Shortly after Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011, he and his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature passed sweeping legislation touching on many corners of the state’s tort laws. Since then, scarcely a year has gone by without Republican ...

Tagged with: Closing Arguments tort reform

Despite last week’s mass murder in Florida and its many predecessors, I don’t want to take away your gun.

Remember when you were a kid and tattling was an art form? Perhaps you were the tattle-tale, never hesitating to rat out a classmate for flooding the sink again, or to throw your brother under the bus for breaking a ...

Tagged with: office of lawyer regulation OLR

Looking for a way to raise money for various road and building projects without raising the property tax levy, Brown County officials last year enacted an ordinance instituting a 0.5 percent local sales and use tax.

Tagged with: sales tax tax levy taxes

An insurance company deposited its remaining policy limits with the court after settling with several, but not all, of the claimants in a personal-injury lawsuit.

Tagged with: Bench Blog Jean DiMotto

A judge's order of restitution doesn't make a criminal incident magically disappear, nor does it remove the memory of the incident from the victim's mind. It's an attempt by the judge to make things right for the victim by ordering the convicted person to pay back the victim for criminal wrongdoing against that person.

Tagged with: criminal code Van Wanggaard

In an era of extreme partisanship, here’s an example of bipartisanship at the Capitol: An Assembly committee has unanimously approved legislation that would boost compensation for people wrongfully imprisoned.

Tagged with: Claims Board Wisconsin Innocence Project

After the state Department of Justice released its report on the leak of John Doe records, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Tim Burns unloaded on Twitter.

Tagged with: Tim Burns

Recently, I had to tell a client some bad news. Not run-of-the-mill, we-lost-a-motion bad news, but life-changing, disruptive bad news that I could not do anything to change.

Wisconsin’s criminal jury instruction 140 describes the prosecutor’s burden of proof as “beyond a reasonable doubt.” However, it then contradicts itself by telling the jury “not to search for doubt” but instead “to search for the truth.”

Tagged with: Critic's Corner Michael D. Cicchini Michael Griesbach

Attorney General Brad Schimel is not the lawyer for Gov. Scott Walker's re-election campaign. But, in a stunning breach of faith that displays his extreme partisanship, Schimel is acting as if the Walker campaign were his client.

Tagged with: Brad Schimel DOJ

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin have been structurally disempowered by the most crooked of political maneuvers.

Tagged with: redistricting

Kenosha County criminal defense attorney Michael Cicchini is on a quest to revise what he considers Wisconsin’s deeply flawed jury instruction concerning the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof.

Tagged with: Michael Cicchini Michael Griesbach Steven Avery

Todd Mueller had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in court. He walked into the Winnebago County Courthouse hoping to be declared the beneficiary of $200,000, but walked out with nothing. He had sued Thomas Edwards and Martina ...

Tagged with: Jean DiMotto Martina Welke Thomas Edwards Todd Mueller

America doesn't need an unprecedented and dangerous constitutional convention to balance its federal budget. It needs real leadership, more courage and cooperation in Washington.

Tagged with: Constitution

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals recently upheld Wisconsin’s right-to-work law in its decision in International Assoc. of Machinists District 10 and its Local Lodge 1061 v. State of Wisconsin, 2017 WI App 66.

Tagged with: Davis & Kuelthau right-to-work Ryan Wiesner

On Oct. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Gill v. Whitford.

Tagged with: Gill v. Whitford redistricting U.S. Supreme Court

The phenomenon of corporate purchases of bundled consumer debt is nothing new. What is new is the question of what a successor buyer must show to collect on individual debt accounts within the bundle.