Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Tag Archives: Gregg Herman

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 »

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 »

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 »

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

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »