State Bar of Wisconsin

Release Guidelines for SBW Information

1. Membership Status - We give out information on whether an attorney is in good standing or has ever been suspended and for what reason. We also give out their member type, such as active, inactive or judicial member, etc.

2. Address Information - We give out business address, phone, fax & email. We will only give out home information if there is no business information. Home phone is never given out.

3. Gender - We will release.

4. Ethnicity - We will not release information or sell names and addresses based on this information. Statistical use only.

5. Date of Birth - We do not release the information to the public. We will confirm a date of birth if the caller has the information.

6. Social Security Number - Not released except to the Supreme Court or as directed by the Court.

7. Prior Last Name - We would give out prior last name information if asked.

8. Admission Information - We give out date admitted to Wisconsin Bar, law school attended, year of graduation and admission type, such as bar exam, foreign license or reciprocity.

9. Trust Account Type - We ask members whether they are in private practice, publicly employed, not practicing, corporate counsel or other. We sometimes receive requests based on this information and we do release it.

10. Section Memberships - Requests usually come from members verifying their section memberships. We do release that information to the individual member (or their staff).

11. Dues Payment Information - Released only to member or a person on the member's staff to verify payments received, etc.

12. Subscriptions - Release information to members only (or their staff) concerning their subscriptions.

13. Financial Transaction Information - Released to members or their staff to verify payments, orders, etc. Not released to the general public. Credit card information is not released.

14. Board/Committee History - Will release this information upon request. We don't get very many requests from public for this information.

15. Areas of Practice/Interest - We don't give out this information because it might indicate the member is a specialist. The member gives the State Bar this information for our marketing purposes.

16. Meeting History - Released to members (or their staff) upon their request. We don't generally receive requests for this information from the public. We have sold names based on convention attendance to convention exhibitors.

17. CLE Credit Information - Released to members (or their staff) upon their request. We use the information internally for marketing purposes.

18. Trust Account Information - This is kept on the dues statements and is not entered into our database. We do not release this information to the public.

19. Lists/Labels - Affinity vendors receive names & addresses at no charge. Convention exhibitors may purchase names of convention attendees for the standard rate. This is generally the only time meeting attendees are sold. Local bars may receive the first 1,000 names & addresses at no charge and then pay 50% of the regular rate for the rest of the order. They receive just names & addresses, but we have made at least one exception, in which we provided email addresses for a rush contact with their county bar members. Some other legal associations are provided names & addresses only at various rates and also for no charge. General vendors pay full rate and receive just names & addresses. Although we do not disclose some information such as date of birth, areas of practice, etc. we do often use these as search criteria for selling groups of names to vendors. For example, we might sell a set of names of all members who are 50-65 years of age, but the purchaser would not receive the individual birth dates.

20. E-mail Addresses - We will release to State Bar leaders (BOG, Section, Division, Committee chairs) based on an internal, operational need and intended for a specific, controlled, and approved use.

21. Credit References - We do not provide credit information on members.

22. HR References - Only dates of employment and title are given without a signed, authorization form.

Last updated: 04/07/2005