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Jan

2026

Features

- Wisconsin Legal Trends 2026
- In this article, 21 lawyers discuss legal trends in 21 different practice areas.
- Inside the Efforts to Bring More Lawyers to Rural Wisconsin
- Many lawyers and legal entities in Wisconsin and elsewhere seek to find workable remedies that lead to long-term solutions to increase the number of lawyers in rural areas, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the State Bar of Wisconsin, the UW and Marquette University Law Schools, and individual lawyers and law firms. The authors look at some of these efforts.
- The State of Hemp-Derived Products in Wisconsin
- The 2018 Farm Bill made possible a legal hemp-derived product market in the U.S. But a part of the spending package that ended the federal government shutdown in November 2025 was a provision that will effectively ban most, if not all, hemp-derived products. Learn how a new definition of hemp will affect interstate commerce of hemp-derived products, criminal liability of producers, retailers, and consumers, and state and local cannabis regulation's governance over these products.
- Anatomy of an Indemnification Agreement: The First-Party Claim Conundrum
- The author examines the conditions under Wisconsin law in which a contractual indemnification provision applies not only to claims by a nonparty to the contract against the indemnified party (third-party claims) but also to claims between parties to the contract (first-party claims).

Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Feb

2026

Features

- Wisconsin's Northern Border Conflict Revisited
- Boundary disputes are common between private property owners, local governments, states, or nations. This article discusses the disagreement between the states of Wisconsin and Michigan about Wisconsin's northern border. The dispute, dormant for many years, was resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1926 after Michigan brought an original-jurisdiction action.
- Evidence, Procedure, Fairness: Applying the Rules in Family Court
- The author discusses the importance of the rules of evidence, and to a certain extent the rules of civil procedure, in family court trials. This issue deserves special attention by judges and lawyers in the family law context because family law litigants are in as much need of "truth-finding" as litigants in any other area of practice.
- As I See It
  The Challenge of Handling Pornography and Other Incriminating Evidence in Wisconsin
- Possession of some types of incriminating evidence poses challenges not only for defendants but also for their lawyers. Child pornography is a prominent example. The authors explore differing views as to how lawyers should deal with such evidence if they are aware of its existence or if they have been given the evidence or a device that contains the evidence.

Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Mar

2026

Features

- More Executive Orders, Deregulation, and Targeted Enforcement: 2025 in Review
- The first year of the second Trump administration, beginning in mid-January 2025, included notable developments in the areas of federal regulatory and enforcement actions. This article discusses some of the most significant developments for lawyers.
- As I See It
  Does Governmental Immunity Relieve a Governmental Entity from Liability for a Safe Place Violation?
- Liability for governmental entities for safe-place-statute violations is unclear because of conflicting opinions from the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. The supreme court can restore harmony on the topic but only if and when it accepts review of a case involving a person injured in a public building owned by a governmental entity.
- THC Beverages, the Farm Bill, and the Federal Register: How Hemp Slipped Into a Regulatory Gap
- Lawyers advising clients on any matters involving THC beverages face challenges: not only determining whether THC beverages are lawful but also understanding how federal regulatory systems behave when Congress draws a bright statutory line and agencies must govern the shadows around it.

Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Apr

2026

Features

- Chaos and Disorder:
  How Prince's Views on Contracts Impacted His Family and His Estate
- Prince's belief that contracts were immoral led to his decision not to put a proper estate plan in place, triggering significant tax liabilities for his estate and obstacles for his family members in the administration of his estate and in benefiting from his remaining musical assets. This opposition to contract law led to one of the messiest estates in Minnesota history.
- As I See It
  Understanding Fusion Voting
- No single electoral reform is going to cure every ailing aspect of democracy in the United States. But at least one reform, fusion voting, is ripe for reexamination by courts that previously upheld state bans on its use. This article explains what fusion voting is and why people are talking about it.
- Post-death Administration in Wisconsin: Navigating Options in an Aging Population
- Wisconsin has a relatively high proportion of residents who are age 65 or older. This demographic trend emphasizes the importance of lawyers being familiar with various post-death administration options, to minimize costs, delays, and conflicts for clients and their heirs. This article reviews key techniques available in Wisconsin.
- Channels of Tax Law (Mis)Information
- Taxpayers receive information about tax law from a variety of sources – not only from tax advisors or the IRS. And some of the information is dispensed when a taxpayer is deciding not how to file a tax return but whether to engage in a transaction. Lawyers and tax advisors should be aware of the potential sources of information and misinformation.

Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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May

2026

Features

- Trial Lawyers: Trying a Case with Different Eyes
- As we grow in mastery over our craft, trial lawyers can yet stray from the ideal, letting bad habits creep into our practice. Whether trying a case to a jury or the bench, there are lessons to be learned or relearned in how we present our cases.
- Trending Topics in Business Litigation
- The rules may be familiar. But new technology, evolving case law, and familiar doctrines in unfamiliar settings are creating fresh challenges for Wisconsin business litigators.
- Wisconsin Court of Appeals: 505 Days to Decision
- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals is taking longer to decide cases than it did at the turn of the century. Lawyers, judges, and justice system participants will continue to debate the potential reasons; in the meantime, the author offers tips for speeding a case's journey to the goal of a decision by the court of appeals.
- Before Money Moves: Introduction to Wisconsin Liens & Subrogation
- With multiple layers of insurance frequently operating in the background, a proper evaluation requires identifying which insurers paid for the incident, what right each payor claims, and who has priority when settlement funds finally come in. Consider all the issues before the money moves.

Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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Opinions, Voices & Ideas

Also Inside

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Opinions, Voices & Ideas

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