March 4, 2026 – Domestic violence in custody disputes can be missed when it shows up as patterns instead of injuries. Public benefits advice can turn on what agencies are doing right now, not just what the law says. And e-discovery decisions increasingly require lawyers to understand how ESI and AI-assisted tools affect privilege, proportionality, and admissibility. Three new 2026 CLE programs from State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE® take on these practice pressures with practical, decision-focused guidance.
Are these areas outside your practice? Here’s a link to help you see what else is going on in March.
6.5 CLE; via webcast on specific dates through Dec. 11, 2026.
Domestic violence doesn’t always announce itself in custody disputes. It may appear as patterns of behavior that are easy to overlook when viewed in isolation. When abuse is misunderstood, minimized, or framed as mutual conflict, children and non-abusive parents face heightened risk.
For guardians ad litem (GALs), recognizing the dynamics of abuse and how they affect children and parenting is essential to making sound, safety-focused recommendations.
Domestic Violence for Guardians ad Litem 2026 is designed to strengthen your ability to recognize, assess, and incorporate domestic violence into your analysis in custody disputes. Using the SAFeR framework, you’ll examine how abuse operates within families, how courts assess risk, and how GALs translate complex facts into clear, defensible recommendations.
This program allows you to:
move beyond surface indicators to identify domestic abuse that does not present as physical harm;
evaluate abuse in context, including patterns of control, power dynamics, and family functioning;
distinguish between different forms of abuse, including coercive control, economic abuse, and resistive violence;
analyze custody and placement issues, considering Wisconsin’s rebuttable presumptions and best-interest factors;
evaluate the impact of domestic violence on children and parenting capacity; and
translate fact-specific findings into custody and placement recommendations to the court.
4.0 CLE; in person and via webcast 8:30 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. on Thursday, March 19, 2026, and on specific dates through June 10, 2026.
Does it seem like advice on public benefits is getting harder to give and easier to get wrong? Questions about Medicare eligibility, housing, immigration, and health coverage options are colliding with administrative demands, legislative action, and evolving implementation requirements. For attorneys advising low-income and vulnerable clients, staying current has become less about black-letter law and more about understanding how these systems are operating right now.
Recent developments affecting public benefits have changed the questions clients are asking and the answers attorneys are expected to give in 2026. The State of the Union: Public Interest Edition cuts through the noise by grounding current policy debates in practical realities.
You’ll examine:
how Medicare fits into the health coverage decisions and constraints now confronting middle- and low-income clients;
delays and service barriers clients face when interacting with the Social Security Administration and how they affect access to benefits;
key policy developments tied to recent federal legislation and administrative actions impacting health coverage options;
approaches to assisting low-income individuals seeking health insurance coverage; and
strategies for minimizing the impact of evictions on housing assistance.
When immigration status enters the picture, questions about public benefits become more complex. Gain clarity on how immigration status and visa type affect eligibility, risk, and access to benefit programs so you can provide clear guidance to immigrant clients.
3.5 CLE and 1.0 EPR; in person 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Monday, March 30, 2026, and via webcast on specific dates through Julu 31, 2026.
Digital evidence has transformed the kinds of information that lawyers must preserve, present, and defend in litigation. As the use of electronically stored information (ESI) expands and AI-assisted discovery tools become routine, questions about competence, privilege, proportionality, and reliability move from the margins to the center of litigation strategy. The result is a discovery process in which judgment matters as much as technology, and mistakes carry real consequences.
From Data to Duty: Essential E-Discovery and Evidentiary Rules in the Age of AI examines how ethical duties and discovery rules apply to digital information and automated processes, and the decisions lawyers must make when evaluating risk and building an evidentiary record that can withstand scrutiny.
What you’ll learn:
how professional responsibility standards apply to ESI and AI-assisted discovery;
preservation obligations and best practices for safeguarding ESI from spoliation;
the role of proportionality when technology expands both access to and the volume of discoverable information;
privilege and confidentiality risks in automated review, vendor platforms, and collaborative environments; and
emerging expectations and ethical challenges affecting admissibility, discovery disputes, and lawyer competence.
From Data to Duty: Essential E-Discovery and Evidentiary Rules in the Age of AI equips you to make well-grounded choices about technology, evidence, and ethics that hold up under pressure.
