State Bar of Wisconsin

Mike Eckert, age 54

Partner of Eckert, Kost & Vocke, LLP, a six lawyer law firm in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Insurance defense and personal injury.  Being in a small town, our firm performs a wide variety of practice, including real estate, probate, estate planning, banking, municipal, and personal injury law.

The general practice course was probably the most useful course in preparing me for my first job.  In terms of personal injury and personal injury defense, and a general knowledge of civil procedure and tort law, most training is "on the job".

I will have been practicing 30 years in June of 2005.

University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Professor Finman's civil procedure class, first semester.

I think I would have to say my best experience was my clerkship with a Rhinelander firm between my second and third years of law school.  In addition, the general practice course and trial advocacy courses at the law school were both excellent experiences.

Without going into specifics, receipt of grades every semester.

Probably the general practice course.

My first job after graduation was with a Rhinelander law firm.  I was the seventh lawyer in that firm at the time of my hiring in June of 1975.

I found the job after doing a clerkship with the firm between my second and third years of  Law school.  I located the clerkship off the Placement Office board at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The firm, like my present firm,  had a general practice.  I worked very closely with a partner who practiced insurance defense and, ultimately, upon his death, took over much of his practice, although by that time, we were practicing with separate law firms.

How little I actually did learn in law school to prepare me for the practice of law. I, frankly, don't know how law school graduates can set out as solo practitioners without a mentor or without the assistance of others in a law firm and begin practice.

One of the senior partners in the firm I started with in June of 1975.  The partner was the senior trial partner in the firm and a very good and very aggressive trial lawyer. He practiced much the same law I practice today.  After our firms split and we parted ways, we frequently found ourselves on opposite sides of cases in the courtroom. Needless to say, I continued to learn.

The variety.  Each case is different.  Each case involves either a different medical issue, different scientific issue, a different engineering issue, etc.  When I think back to my college days and working on a load dock with Teamsters and watching those individuals count virtually the hours until their retirement, I am thankful I continued my college education and completed law school and had the opportunity to engage in a profession which offers the constant variety that the practice of law does.  I have probably tried in the neighborhood of 200 jury trials, most of them multiple days.  No two cases are ever alike.

It probably took 20 to 25 years to answer this question.  In retrospect, as my three sons have grown and left my home and started their own lives, the time away from my family which the profession has demanded is probably the least attractive thing about the profession of law.

I haven't been back to the law school and taught in the general practice course for some time. I have, therefore, lost some contact with the course offering.

My law firm has six attorneys, two certified paralegals, and a total of 14 employees.  As we embark upon building a new office building to house the firm, it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the one thing law school did not prepare me for was the "business" of law.  With the human resources demands, cash flow needs, technology needs, and increasing competitive pressures from other lawyers and law firms, law school alone is not enough.  You need some business sense or business background, particularly if you are going to strike out alone or work with a small law firm.