Voters in southeastern Wisconsin elevated a conservative-backed Waukesha County judge to a state Court of Appeals seat on Tuesday in a race that took a sharp partisan turn and featured ads referring to the Waukesha Christmas parade killings.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Maria Lazar has launched her campaign for the Wisconsin State Court of Appeals District II.

Lisa Neubauer, the chief judge on the state appeals court, announced Thursday she is running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a bid to replace the retiring liberal Justice Shirley Abrahamson next year.

Add Waukesha County Circuit Judge Maria Lazar to the ever-growing list of those considering a run for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

A federal judge has denied a preliminary injunction to delay implementing the constitutional amendment that lets justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court select their leader.

Representing Wisconsin in court cases that have captured national interest, Maria Lazar, assistant attorney general for the state Department of Justice, has had an undoubtedly eventful past four years. What comes next for the Brookfield native likely will be no less interesting: judge in Waukesha County Circuit Court, Branch 7.

A state attorney urged a judge Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to void statutes that require doctors to decide if a woman is consenting voluntarily to an abortion and to be present when the woman gets abortion-inducing drugs.

Civil rights attorneys pressed a federal judge Wednesday to temporarily block the state's Capitol access policy, arguing the rules stifle free speech and don't serve any legitimate government interest.

When she applied for the role of Wisconsin assistant attorney general, Maria Lazar thought it looked like a challenging opportunity but never realized “high-profile” could describe the role.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker quietly reinstated a program to give merit raises and bonuses to some state workers even as he preached cost-cutting and pushed through a law reducing most public workers' pay and eliminating their union rights.

Lawyers arguing over the legality of Wisconsin's election maps in a federal trial said Friday they have dropped several of their claims, leaving two main issues for a three-judge panel to resolve.

The voting rights of Milwaukee's Latino community would be "significantly diminished" under the redrawn voter maps that the Republican-led Legislature passed last year, an expert witness testified Thursday.