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

A few years ago, my (then) three-year-old daughter printed what looked like an entire ream of paper with her full-color Dora the Explorer computer game pictures. I went ballistic. Now in second grade, my daughter still remembers that fateful day, and whenever she now wants to print something from the Club Penguin or Webkinz sites, she asks if it’s OK. ...

The ASTC’s Jury Expert on-line magazine has been so well received that announcing a new issue is now the easiest post I ever have to write. This is all straight from the table of contents, and I don’t need to add anything to make it clear how relevant each article is: On the Obstacles to Jury Diversity, by Samuel R. ...

I just found a jury blog I didn’t know about. It’s called Things That Make You Go Hmmm . . . , from the jury consulting firm Jury Impact. They’ve been up for just under a year, with 36 anonymous posts in that time. Like most blogs, it’s mostly links to and comments on news stories (Dennis Quaid and the ...

Deliberations’ American Gallery of Juror Art went a little viral last week, after it turned up in Boing Boing (“a directory of wonderful things”). Several bloggers picked it up from there, including Robert Ambrogi in Legal Blog Watch, and it popped up periodically on Twitter all week. Deliberations is pleased to bring a small bit of attention to these varied ...

Judges who recuse themselves from cases often seem to take the stance of better safe than sorry. That’s fine, and I certainly would not want a judge being even subconsciously subjective if I were on trial for murder, or in court to contest a speeding ticket. But the rationale for when a judge steps away from a case also seems ...

The Library of Congress maintains a resource for military legal research. The site is part of the “Federal Research Division.” On this website, a researcher will find a variety of items including court martial manuals, Army regulations, Geneva Convention materials, war crime trial materials, and issues of both the “Army Lawyer” and “Military Law Review” periodicals. Another place to visit ...

A look at Wisconsin’s arrest and conviction record discrimination law

Executives, consultants, and business analysts are currently asking themselves a critical question: Does a major economic downturn increase a company’s chance of being hit by employee fraud? The answer to that question isn’t immediately clear. Fraud experts are often quick to theorize that difficult economic conditions naturally create a higher instance of workplace fraud. The problem with this theory, however, ...

Nada. Zilch. Nothing. That’s what the software discussed in this column will cost you. It’s all available as free downloads off the Web. I’ve spent entire columns on Open Office.org, Skype and various Google applications germane to lawyers and other professionals. Also, about a year ago, I wrote a feature article about Milwaukee attorney Robert Teuber’s use of Audacity open-source ...

Wisconsin’s appellate family law cases from 2008 can be characterized best by … their severe paucity. Speculation on the reasons will follow. Bur first, the cases. Steinmann v. Steinmann, 2008 WI 43 The main issue involved a “Limited Marital Property Classification Agreement,” classifying various assets and income. The wife argued the circuit court should have applied tracing rather than transmutation ...

Lexis Web is the new legal search engine offered by LexisNexis. The product is in beta and currently free. According to the user guide (PDF), the “Lexis Web product includes important, legal-oriented Web content selected and validated by the LexisNexis editorial staff. You can trust that all content has met LexisNexis criteria for being authoritative and accurate.” The goal is ...

Recent news of the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by investment advisor Bernard L. Madoff has done nothing to ease the fears of investors who have been annihilated by the stock market over the last couple of months. How does an investment opportunity go from being a legitimate investment vehicle to a pyramid scheme? In this case, it is ...

How’s this for a race-neutral reason to strike a black juror? I do not select overweight people on the jury panel for reasons that, based on my reading and past experience, that heavy-set people tend to be very sympathetic toward any defendant. So said the prosecutor in Seth Dolphy’s 1997 New York trial on drug, weapon, and assault charges, and ...

While he doesn’t claim to be as outrageous as Jim Carrey in the popular courtroom comedy, attorney Garth R. Seehawer can lie with the best of them. At least that is what the Burlington Liars Club said. The 90-year old Wisconsin organization honored Seehawer for crafting the best lie of 2008. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_fe_st/odd_top_liars Here it is. “My grandson is the most ...

When a historical perspective is needed, often times a trip to the library is necessary. Many libraries offer “clipping files” which is a file of older news stories pertaining to a particular topic. Libraries also provide access to older newspapers on microfiche/microfilm or searchable databases. The librarians at public and academic libraries can offer you many suggestions when doing this ...

Michigan State University’s Animal & Legal Historical Center is an excellent resource for animal law resources. The site is very comprehensive, offering the researcher: State laws Key cases Pleadings and Briefs Various publications Historical materials World laws The site also has a cool “map page.” The researcher chooses the topic of interest, and then utilizes a map to select the ...

Are you picking a jury on January 5? Be glad you won't have me on the panel. If you're still picking jurors by demographic profile alone, you might think you want someone like me. I'm fairly educated, a lawyer, a parent, a blogger, pretty senior at my office and thus used to leading project groups — that's not the right ...

The Legislative Reference Bureau’s Administrative Code page has a feature that I believe is often overlooked. It is the “Citations to Codes in the Wisconsin Appellate Court Cases.” Organized by agency (back to 1956), the researcher looks for a specific code section (e.g. DFI-Bkg 73.01) and, if listed, will find Wisconsin Appellate cases that cite it. What an easy way ...

Wausau attorney Sarah L. Ruffi, of Ruffi Law Offices S.C., took a four-day break from technology over Thanksgiving weekend. On Monday morning, upon firing up her computer, a mere 40 e-mails were awaiting. It took only a few minutes to respond to those that needed a response, and to file or delete those that did not. The best part of ...

Specific expertise possessed by law firms makes for valuable events. Prospects, clients and media benefit from hearing the latest legal trends. Event speakers benefit from getting their message out to an influential audience. Vendors benefit by hawking their wares, typically outside the event venue. Event organizers benefit by sharing costs with these vendors and, of course, by being associated with ...

Abraham Lincoln is often referred to as having said that time and advice are a lawyer’s stock in trade. The client receives advice; the lawyer expends time to provide it. But there are two types of “law time”: the hours necessary to de-velop and provide legal advice, and those necessary to run the practice. Managing this time requires setting and ...

There are two websites I always visit when researching layoff information. The first is JWT Inside, which offers an easy to search Layoff Database. This tool includes a variety of query options. The researcher can search by week or keyword. The weekly report lists the various companies, locations, affected workforce, news source, and date of the layoffs for that particular ...

Having accumulated several holiday cards from well-wishers in the legal profession, it made me wonder what lawyers may leave under the tree for their loyal clients this time of year – aside from perhaps a nice settlement or an acquittal, of course. Some local attorneys in casual conversation said in the past they have given clients holiday presents ranging from ...

Greg Lambert, fellow law librarian, posted an interesting selection of law and technology “Top 10 lists” on 3 Geeks and a Law Blog. He looked to the web and various blog posts from throughout the year to compile the list. There were quite few I had to read, including: Top 10 Blog Mistakes by Law Firms and Law Firm Marketing ...

I never took typing in high school. Since it was an elective, it was offered at 2 p.m., and in my senior year we could leave early if we were done with the required classes. So, it was an easy choice: typing, or General Hospital? Those were the Luke and Laura years, after all. In my defense, who could have ...

A couple of columns ago, I wrote about a pair of Google applications of special relevance to legal marketing — Google Alerts and Google Analytics. That’s just scratching the surface of Google’s possibilities for lawyers. This week, I’ll look at a pair of Google tools for self-organization: Google Apps and Google Desktop. Google Apps James L. Bartells, of James L. ...

Per their website, “the Judicial Council is a 21-member body whose principal statutory responsibilities are to study and make recommendations relating to: (1) court pleading, practice and procedure; and (2) organization, jurisdiction and methods of administration and operation of Wisconsin courts.” Litigators are often interested in documentation produced by the Council. Items include minutes, committee records, correspondence, and reports. Review ...

A December evening in the big city. A light snow was falling, and it was already dark. ome-where outside, a lonely saxophone played “Silent Night.” The notes drifted through the cold air like fast food wrappers blown out of the garbage cans. I was working late, trying to get enough billable hours in to take a few days off at ...

The Wisconsin Department of Health maintains a nice collection of health statistics. The home page offers the researcher links to several main areas. The vital statistics page summarizes birth, death, and life expectancy data. The “insurance status” link offers several reports on health insurance coverage among residents. Other pages include minority health and population information. I personally find the Health ...

A new report reveals that throughout the last eight months, 85 new legal blogs have been created and 71 of the 2008 AmLaw 200 law firms now blog, compared to just 39 a little more than a year ago. Kevin O’ Keefe, CEO of LexBlog and former Wisconsin attorney, discusses in detail the report’s findings at Real Lawyers Have Blogs. ...