May 7, 2025 – As the U.S. Supreme Court ended its 1974 Term 50 years ago, it limited the scope of traffic stops by the Border Patrol and addressed a case arising out of an advertisement encouraging “Truth Squads” for the presidential election – concerns we still feel.

In the same term, that court prohibited attorney fee schedules as First Amendment violations, held that playing music on the radio did not infringe copyrights, and released multiple cases while denying certiorari for five more, about reasonable limits for local ordinances prohibiting nudity or defining obscenity – issues that show their age.

The young lawyers stepping into this bold world look back to the cases that defined their practices and how the legal world has changed.

Criminal Focus

Starting his career as Milwaukee County assistant district attorney, Marquette University Law School Emeritus Professor Thomas Hammer remembers the U.S. Supreme Court had “a lot of important cases that were fleshing out the big decisions that came out in the 1960s, like Miranda” – “which is very different from today.”

Miranda v. Arizona, which helped shape the final chorus in many TV crime shows, may be the most well-known. In 1975, Michigan v. Mosley addressed re-interrogation after a suspect received the Miranda right to remain silent, Hammer recalled.

The extension of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule to states brought Gerstein v. Pugh, involving judicial review of probable cause after a warrantless arrest, Hammer said. Gideon v. Wainwright’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel also received clarification in Faretta v. California.

Although those 1975 cases come to mind for Hammer, he points out that these cases represented a mid-point of a decade in which the Burger Court refined the Warren Court’s seminal 1960s decisions.

“The stories of Ernesto Miranda, Dollree Mapp, Clarence Gideon, and John Terry are now six decades old,” Hammer said. “But the legacy of their cases, much litigated in the seventies, continues to impact the practice of criminal law to this day – though in a world they could never imagine.”

Marquette University Law School Emeritus Professor Thomas Hammer remembers the U.S. Supreme Court had “a lot of important cases that were fleshing out the big decisions that came out in the 1960s, like Miranda” – “which is very different from today.”

Defining Case

Lester Pines, recently retired from Pines Bach LLP in Madison, can point to an active 1975 case easily. The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Hortonville Education Association v. Hortonville Joint School District No. 1, 66 Wis. 2d 469, in spring 1975. It went on to the U.S. Supreme Court (426 U.S. 482). The case remained a constant in Pines’ career.

Teachers in the Hortonville school district went on strike, which was illegal under state law. The school board asked the teachers to return. For those who didn’t, the school board sent notices of disciplinary hearings.

Out of those hearings, the school board fired all striking teachers, although the board also invited the teachers to reapply for their positions.

The union sued, claiming that the school board, which had negotiated with the teachers and denied their demands, was biased and couldn’t fairly decide a disciplinary hearing against striking teachers. They argued a violation of Fourteenth Amendment due process.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided 5-2 that the teachers were correct. They deserved due process that could not come from an adversary school board. The teachers had recourse in circuit court.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. Its 6-3 opinion, written by Chief Justice Warren Burger and released in June 1976, held that the school board, which had not shown “a personal or official stake in the decision,” could decide the teachers’ disciplinary hearings. In fact, absent a conflict of interest, the elected board had a duty to do so.

Hortonville “was a significant case about the relationship of public employee unions to their employer,” Pines remembered.

“But the reason I’m familiar with it is that, in my career, when I represented Madison teachers for decades, there was a strike…, and at that time … strikes were illegal unless the strike was over a prohibited practice,” Pines recalled.

“And so, we were able to avoid discharge and avoid injunctive relief because our position was that the strike was the result of a prohibited practice that had been committed by the Madison School District.”

Hortonville “was something that the … public employee union movement in Wisconsin had to deal with for … the entirety of my career because I started practicing in 1975,” Pines said.

Lester Pines, recently retired from Pines Bach LLP in Madison, can point to an active 1975 case easily. The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Hortonville Education Association v. Hortonville Joint School District No. 1, 66 Wis. 2d 469, in spring 1975. It went on to the U.S. Supreme Court (426 U.S. 482). The case remained a constant in Pines’ career.

Women in Law

Janine P. Geske, distinguished professor of law at Marquette University Law School and former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, remembers 50 years ago “the development of rights” at the U.S. Supreme Court, “as opposed to now.”

But the differences of 50 years ago were more personal to Geske. She was among 12 women in a law school class of about 140 – less than 10%.

“The issue of women and where women can go … was a huge issue at that time,” she recalls.

It was not unusual for a potential employer in a job interview to ask, “if you have children,” and other examples of “blatant discrimination.”

Heading into her third year of law school, Geske, who grew up in Cedarburg, “was trying to find a practice in a small town where I could be a general practitioner.” She got one interview. “They were more worried whether my husband would move up with me.”

“I fell into an opportunity,” Geske said, “to be a legal aid lawyer, and it was the best thing that happened to me.” It was great – a “total assortment of legal issues in addition to social issues and in addition to cultural issues” for Geske, who thrives on working with people.

“I learned pretty quickly how particular courts treat my clients,” said Geske, who became a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, and from there continued her zeal to make people in court “feel they are valued and respected.”

Geske also serves as director of Marquette Law School’s Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, a part of her focus to use dispute resolution as “a form of healing.”

Her advice to younger lawyers is to find a place “where you feel you are making a difference.”

She, and her fellow women classmates, have done that. “Women went all directions,” she said – large law practice, public defender, insurance counsel. “I was the only one who went into poverty law, and I loved it.”

Janine P. Geske, distinguished professor of law at Marquette University Law School and former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, remembers 50 years ago “the development of rights” at the U.S. Supreme Court, “as opposed to now.”

Rural Practice

When William T. Curran was graduating from Marquette University Law School, he felt “lucky to have three choices.” He could go to a Milwaukee law firm where he clerked, work for a good firm in Janesville, or return to his family practice.

“The guidance I got, mostly from two or three of the faculty members at the law school, was I’d be nuts if I didn’t go back and train under my dad,” Curren said. Since then, he has served as a lawyer at Curran, Hollenbeck & Orton S.C. in Mauston.

From the start, Curran’s practice involved “a lot of trial work” – and that’s the change he has seen.

“If I have one disappointment about the legal system in Wisconsin, it’s that we’ve let the civil jury trial almost become extinct,” Curran said. For a new lawyer, even one starting enthusiastic about trial work, “it would be very, very difficult” to get that experience.

“It’s a lost experience, and it’s bad for the system because it doesn’t help promote the respect for the courts and the pool from which judges are chosen,” said Curran, whose career has included serving on state and federal judicial selection panels.

When Curran began his career, county seat towns had at least two law firms of three or four lawyers each. “Now none of them do.”

His firm, in contrast, has grown from four to eight lawyers, serving a six- to eight-county rural region, and he feels “blessed we are able to recruit good lawyers to come to the firm, if we mentor them.”

“If I have one disappointment about the legal system in Wisconsin, it’s that we’ve let the civil jury trial almost become extinct,” says William T. Curran. For a new lawyer, even one starting enthusiastic about trial work, “it would be very, very difficult” to get that experience.

Transactional Perspective

In Marvin Ripp’s Waunakee practice, he gradually entered title insurance. He’s worked for First American Title Insurance Company now for 40 years, currently as Wisconsin underwriting counsel.

When Marvin Ripp was concluding his last year at the University of Wisconsin Law School, he looked forward to taking over a general law practice in his hometown of Waunakee. “So my recollection of Supreme Court cases would be limited,” he said.

In Ripp’s Waunakee practice, he gradually entered title insurance. He’s worked for First American Title Insurance Company now for 40 years, currently as Wisconsin underwriting counsel.

In that transactional world, Ripp explained, “You start with the statutes and then once in a while a case comes along that affects real estate, not as often as criminal law and some other things that are more spectacular in the news.”

The cases that are out there might not help now. “A lot of cases you’re looking at are quite old. When you look out of the corner of your eye, when I wonder if they’ll still hold up, when push comes to shove” against a high-value claim, Ripp explained.

Celebrating Our 50-year Members

The State Bar is celebrating the lawyers admitted in 1975, reaching their 50-year milestone in the legal profession. Together, we honor your years of practice and your many achievements.