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  • Press Release
    October 17, 2016

    Wisconsin Law Foundation Honors John Skilton and Ness Flores

     

    NEWS RELEASE 
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
    OCTOBER 14, 2016
     
     
     
    CONTACT:
    Kristen Durst
    (608) 250-6025
    kdurst@wisbar.org
     
                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                   
        Wisconsin Law Foundation Honors John Skilton and
    Ness Flores
     

     Madison, WI The Honorable Ness Flores of Waukesha and Madison Attorney John Skilton are this years corecipients of the Wisconsin Law Foundation (WLF) Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award. The award is given for a lifetime of service to the profession and the community, and will be presented at the Fellows of the Wisconsin Law Foundation Annual Recognition Dinner on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016 in Milwaukee.

     

     Flores has served as Wisconsin Circuit Court judge and is a former chair of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. Additionally, he has spent many years in private practice in Waukesha, and has successfully litigated hundreds of cases in state and federal courts, including two cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Flores has served on numerous boards including the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.

     

     Flores is a leader in the southeastern Wisconsin Hispanic community, where he has worked to ensure access by Spanish-speaking individuals to the justice system, and during his career worked tirelessly to pass a comprehensive migrant farm labor protection law. And he’s been a key player and leader in a number of civic and nonprofit organizations in Waukesha County and the surrounding region. Flores was recently recognized for his lifetime achievement by the Waukesha County Bar Association.

     

     “Throughout his career he has consistently comported himself ethically and gentlemanly, always striving to represent his clients vigorously while maintaining a civil and cordial relationship with the parties, lawyers, the court and court personnel. He has always shed a good light on his profession and community,” said Attorney Michael Reyes of Waukesha.

     

     The other Goldberg Award recipient, Attorney John Skilton, is a partner at Perkins Coie in Madison in the firm's patent litigation practice and has 45 years of experience as a trial lawyer. He has managed complex commercial, antitrust, patent and intellectual property, dealer and distribution, contract, product liability, and constitutional disputes. In the past 30 years, Skilton has concentrated his practice in patent litigation, trying more than a dozen patent cases. He has litigated numerous pro bono cases involving civil rights and constitutional issues and has been admitted pro hac vice in state and federal courts nationwide.

     

     Skilton has served as president of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association, president of the State Bar of Wisconsin, and as co-chair of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and has received numerous awards including the Wisconsin Law Foundation’s Gordon Sinykin Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Service, and Wisconsin’s Equal Justice Fund’s Howard B. Eisenberg Lifetime Achievement Award. He is currentlyfor the second time a State Bar delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates.

     

     “John has held the `Rule of Law’ as his torch light. His dedication to the preservation of `Equal Justice under the Law’ is unfailing. It is not only his vocation but his avocation,” said Attorney Steven Sorenson of Oshkosh.

     

    Skilton also has a lifelong interest in Abraham Lincoln and has studied his 24 year legal career extensively. He has taught a seminar at the U.W. Law School on the subject and has spoken to many groups and bar associations on the topic of "Lincoln the lawyer."                                                                                                                                                  

    The Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award is the Wisconsin Law Foundation’s highest honor. The Goldberg Award recognizes a lawyer for lifetime service to the legal profession and to the public. Nominations for the award are judged based upon their accomplishments in the law, service to the profession and service to the community as a whole over an entire career.

    The Wisconsin Law Foundation (WLF), founded in 1951, is the charitable arm of the State Bar of Wisconsin. WLF is a charitable and educational organization that promotes public understanding of the law, improvement of the administration of justice and other law-related public service through funding of innovative and creative programs that improve the vision of the American justice systems.

    In the past 34 years the award has only gone to two individuals in the same year four timesand only when the two nominees possessed equal extraordinary accomplishments.

     

     

     

     

     

     



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