The trial involved huge risks for both sides.
Read More »Tag Archives: Gregg Herman
The good, bad, worse news to come from the Supreme Court election
Much as I like to vary topics in my monthly column, the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election presents too much fodder for comment and is too important to simply let it go.
Read More »Wisconsin on brink of constitutional crisis as courts face unprecedented DA, public defender shortage
Editors Note: Our Managing Editor, Steve Schuster spoke to Judges, the Office of Lawyer Regulation, Federal Prosecutors, District Attorneys throughout the Midwest, the State Bar of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Attorney General, Governor Tony's Evers office, as well as legislatures to determine the full extent of the problem and possible solutions on how to fix Wisconsin's broken criminal justice system.
Read More »Courts (and the legal field in its entirety) should choose civility
There are frequent reminders for lawyers in Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs and articles on the importance of civility among adversaries. Civility, like all good lessons, should flow from the top down, as children learn from their parents. In law, that means civility starts with the judges and court commissioners.
Read More »The age of settlement: Peace rather than war
For a number of years, I’ve put together a family law cases update program for the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the State Bar Family Law Section and the state family court judges.
Read More »Politics vs. real life. A living wage is a start
On Jan. 19, the Wisconsin Assembly gave a final approval to a proposed constitutional amendment that would, they claim, make it more difficult for violent criminals to get out of jail on bail. The proposal will go before voters where it will undoubtedly be ratified in the April 4 election.
Read More »Looking back: The best and worst of 2022
One of my favorite columns is to review family law cases and legislation from the prior year. It gives me yet another opportunity to express my thoughts on the good and the bad that occurred. Fortunately for me as a columnist, there was enough bad to make this column (hopefully) somewhat entertaining as “good” tends to be boring.
Read More »Wisconsin Supreme Court election gets off to ugly start
One of the ugly parts of our legal system is the politics of electing judges. With an election for a Supreme Court justice in 2023, the ugliness has gotten an early start.
Read More »Competing rights and interests
On Nov. 6, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Brackeen v. Haaland, a case which presented numerous constitutional and legislative issues regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act or ICWA.
Read More »Pro se representation comes at a cost
Few recent trials have attracted as much attention in the non-legal world than the Brooks trial in Waukesha.
Read More »Out of the mouths of babes
While a child of 16 years with a car is going to make his or her own decision about placement, do we really want to give a 7 year old that authority?
Read More »The right to self-represent
In 1975, The United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to waive counsel and self-represent in a criminal case. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975). While the trial court has a responsibility to discourage self-representation, it cannot prohibit it. The result can be (and usually is) the circus occurring in the Waukesha trial of the Christmas parade driver Darrell Brooks.
Read More »A resource for family law cases
Ten years ago, the average number of cases to report on, between Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals (published and citeable unpublished cases) was 15-20 per year. So far this year, there have been zero Supreme Court cases, one published Court of Appeals case and four citeable unpublished Court of Appeals cases.
Read More »Closing a law practice: Not as simple as it seems
After 38 years as a family law attorney with Loeb & Herman LLC, I have joined JAMS as a neutral in its Wisconsin office.
Read More »Batter up for some judicial activism
The term “judicial activism” is commonly thrown around to disparage judges. It generally is used to accuse courts of being too aggressive or too liberal. A recent court of appeals decision contains an element which raises an interesting question.
Read More »CUSTODY AND SERVICE PEOPLE: New law not perfect but does have good elements
The confluence of law and politics does not always equal good policy. A good example is the continuing efforts over the years to deal with the issue of the effect of deployed service people and the placement of minor children.
Read More »The U.S. Supreme Court and politics
It would be pointless to write a column on the United States legal system and ignore the two significant cases which the court decided this week. One case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen significantly expanded gun rights by striking down a New York law which restricted the right of New Yorkers to carry handguns in public.
Read More »WHERE HAVE ALL THE LAWYERS GONE? Underpaying defense attorneys no way to be ‘tough on crime’
On May 24, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with two justices dissenting, dismissed an appeal of the Court of Appeals decision in State v. Lee, 2021 WI App 12, in a per curium “decision” of less than one page.
Read More »Courts meant to serve the public
Here's a simple idea: Courts should serve the public. In particular, parties should be allowed to be divorced without the costs and inconvenience of a public court appearance.
Read More »Herman re-certified by National Board of Trial Advocacy
Family Law Attorney Gregg Herman has been re-certified by The National Board of Trial Advocacy as a senior specialist in family law.
Read More »Will courts really enforce proposed financial information exchange rules?
In law, as in many things in life, some ideas are better in theory than in practice. It is not uncommon that the Legislature, which has precious few lawyers (most sessions have ten or fewer lawyers out of 133 state Senators and Representatives, and almost none of them has ever been in the private practice of law), passes legislation which sounds good on its face but has a different practical effect. The phrase which attaches to such legislation is “the law of unintended consequences.”
Read More »LAWYER ADVERTISING: Is it hucksterism or a valid business practice?
Last weekend, the CBS show “Sunday Morning” did a segment on lawyer advertising. Of course they showed clips from the over-the-top ads which seem to be mostly from Texas. The effect, as one who believes that the practice of law should be more of a profession than a business, was cringe inducing.
Read More »The Valadez case: A bad start to the year
The first family-law case to be recommended for publication by the Court of Appeals in almost two years makes me wish that it would have been longer. Well, the good news is that when I write my end of the year column for 2022 highlighting bad decisions, I will have a good start.
Read More »Look ahead to 2022 with family law
Last month’s column took a look back at the developments in family law for 2021. So, it seems appropriate to dedicate this month’s column to a look ahead to 2022.
Read More »COLUMN: Exploiting an abhorrent act
A few weeks out of law school, I got my dream job. After some short training, I was sent into court and given two instructions: First, don’t f**k up. Second, if you do f**k up, don’t let it get in the newspapers.
Read More »YEAR IN REVIEW: Looking back at happened in 2021 with family law
It’s time for my annual year in review – a look back at those new cases and statutes in family law which improve this area of law and those which, well, not so much.
Read More »There should be no ties in litigation
There is a saying in sports that a tie is like kissing your sister. For an appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, however, a tie would be like kissing your sister after having paid her a lot of money.
Read More »Where have all the grievances gone?
For about the last thirty years, my side job has been to serve as retained counsel, first for BAPR, then for OLR.
Read More »The high conflict divorce
My late partner, Leonard Loeb, used to say that every lawyer has at least one case which they think is the cause of most of their headaches and lost sleep. The lawyer thinks “as soon as that case is completed, my life will be so much easier.” But, naturally, as soon as that case does wrap up, there is another one with the same effect on the lawyer.
Read More »COVID AND CUSTODY: Surprising lack of litigation among parents over vaccines, masks
One of the expected consequences of the COVID epidemic was disputes between parents regarding parenting children.
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