March 2, 2016 – In April, candidates John Danner (Minocqua) and Paul Swanson (Oshkosh) will square off in an election for the State Bar of Wisconsin’s president-elect post. Learn more about the candidates in this Q&A with both of them.
Ballots will go out the week of April 7, as well as election ballots for the State Bar Board of Governors, State Bar secretary, and a Judicial Council representative.
The winner of the 2016 president-elect position will serve a one-year term, starting July 1, 2016, before serving a one-year term as State Bar president.
Q: How can the State Bar best serve a membership with diverse needs and different challenges?
Swanson: The leadership of the State Bar relies on the representatives of each of the divisions and of all the sections to identify and communicate to it issues and concerns of the various members of those groups. Likewise, the Board of Governors represent local constituencies and communicate issues and concerns raised there from at board meetings. These groups are certainly diverse and represent all walks of the practice of law. The Board of Governors and leadership then deal with the issues raised by these groups before it as the ultimate deliberative body of the Bar.
How do we prioritize the needs and challenges facing us? The leadership that you elect, including the president of the organization, persuades, cajoles, or otherwise convinces the board to take positions, fund worthwhile programs, and address issues to the extent resources are available. The Board of Governors and section and division leadership channel those concerns, which are hopefully met and addressed by our organization.
Danner: In responding to the needs and challenges presented to the State Bar of Wisconsin by its diverse membership, I believe that the State Bar first needs to embrace the fact that its membership is diverse, not only ethnically, but demographically, and professionally as well. This has been done in part by amending the State Bar’s bylaws to create the Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Committee.
The State Bar should encourage its members to participate in the diversity clerkship program for first year students, and pursue efforts to seek student loan debt relief for lawyers similar to those of health care and education professionals practicing their professions in depressed areas.
The needs of solo and small firm practitioners differ from the needs of corporate attorneys, and lawyers practicing in large firms. Government lawyers face challenges that are unique in part to their situations, but also similar to the solo and small firm practitioner. The State Bar needs to be aware of these differing needs, and seek ways to address them. The State Bar should encourage all groups, whether based upon ethnic backgrounds, demographic differences, or professional differences to bring their concerns forward, and the State Bar needs to be perceived as a body that both hears and responds to these concerns.
In addition, the State Bar should strive to create in its members a desire to belong to this organization, notwithstanding that its members must belong in order to practice law. We have one of the largest, if not the largest, percentage of non-resident lawyers compared to in-state lawyers of any state bar association. These individuals clearly belong because they wish to, and their concerns cannot be ignored.
Q: How would your professional and life experiences help you lead the organization?
Danner: I have been blessed with communication skills that have assisted me both personally and professionally. The State Bar members do not always agree with positions taken by its Board of Governors. Even through such disagreement, the State Bar needs to present itself to society as a whole as a body united in achieving its goals and objectives. My communication skills will be invaluable in seeking to have those with differing views and opinions to at least understand the basis for positions expressed and actions taken.
Lawyers exist because there are differing opinions, and if everyone agreed on every issue, we would become unnecessary. Nearly 20 years ago, the State Bar assisted in the creation of SCR 62, Standards of Courtesy and Decorum for the Courts of Wisconsin. The State Bar and PINNACLE would do well to revisit those standards in the form of CLE offerings regarding those standards, as either stand-alone programs, or in conjunction with the annual meeting’s activities.
Swanson: I have been involved in the leadership of the State Bar since I was a young lawyer. I have also been involved in other organizations, including serving as the president of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees. I have run conventions and educational programs for more than a thousand attendees, with the help of staff, and successfully organized and led CLE programs in Wisconsin and around the country for other lawyers. I know how to deliver value for a membership in an organization.
I also believe I have the resilience necessary to bear the “slings and arrows” of leading the State Bar of Wisconsin, not only by virtue of being an attorney in a very contentious area of the law, but also by having raised twins while caring for a disabled spouse over the last 18 years, all while still managing to find time for our association. I am confident that my knowledge of the inner workings of the State Bar, gleaned from my many years being involved in leadership roles within it, will allow me to “hit the ground running” and get things done.
If you became State Bar president, is there a specific problem you would like to address, or a specific goal you would like to achieve?
Swanson: I really want the Bar to deliver value for membership. Many don’t think that their membership provides anything at all. It does, and I want it to do better. The association offers so much to so many, but only if those members know about the benefits and actually get involved and take advantage of them. I would hope that I could cultivate awareness of the value of our membership.
I also believe we need to push for change in our justice system which incarcerates, at great economic and societal expense, far too many people. This must change, and we should do all we can to effectuate it. Likewise, there is a large but unmet need for civil legal advice that the Bar needs to develop innovative and cost effective ways to address, maybe even providing opportunities for members to viably represent those with limited means.
Danner: The State Bar is facing a current membership trend of more lawyers retiring and/or leaving the practice than newer lawyers becoming members. With that trend, the State Bar leaders will need to think outside the box in order to avoid a fiscal crisis created by a downturn in dues income and a continuing demand from members for services. My goal, as president-elect and president, would be to face this challenge head-on, recognizing the differing backgrounds of our members, i.e., professionally, demographically and ethnically, and proposing solutions to the problems created by this potential crisis.
The State Bar will not sustain itself if it relies primarily upon dues income for its continued operation and existence. The current business plan offers guidance in solving this potential problem, but the governing body of the State Bar needs to have the foresight to meet this problem before it becomes insurmountable. Philosophically, my ultimate goal as president would be to have the State Bar be in a better place following my service than it is today. The State Bar needs to be in a constant state of positive change and growth.
Where do you see the future of the legal profession headed, and what can the State Bar do to best prepare its members?
Danner: Not all law school graduates are able to secure positions with large-mid-small sized firms where they are guaranteed, at least for a time, with a regular source of income. There is a trend where fewer firms are hiring new associates. More often, newly graduating lawyers make the decision to practice on their own.
The burden of student loan debt often requires these individuals to seek second sources of income just to survive. The State Bar and its members should be challenged to assist these individuals in maintaining the high standards of practice, through informal or formal mentoring programs. There may soon be counties in Wisconsin where the only lawyers practicing are judges, district attorneys, and corporate counsels.
The State Bar should assist younger lawyers in seeking out practice areas where there are fewer and fewer lawyers. This assistance does not need to be financial, but in providing a mechanism for guidance to connect lawyers seeking a place to practice with areas lacking lawyers in the active practice.
Swanson: The future of the legal profession will be marked by great change, more so than what we’ve seen over the last 10 to 15 years. The instant communication among anyone with a smart phone and access to the Internet was something unimaginable 15 years ago. The ability to access legal information by the public will increase, and lawyers need to adapt to the changes that lay in front of them. The Bar needs to stay at the forefront of these developments and devote the resources necessary to not only do so, but to communicate those changes to our membership so we can adapt.
Whom do you admire and why?
Danner: My father, Emil, instilled in me a recognition of the value, “if you can give back, you need to give back.” That philosophy has spurred me to volunteer whenever I could, to become involved in every community in which I have lived, both pre-lawyering and now.
Swanson: I admire my father, a lawyer who taught me how to try a case. He is a World War II veteran who obtained his law degree on the GI Bill from Wisconsin and had a general trial practice. He is the best man I know.
Describe your philosophy on life, in 10 words or less
Swanson: Live in the moment, with an eye on the future.
Danner: Strive to make today the best day of your life.