Madison, WI –Madison attorney and recently retired U.W. Law School Professor Ralph Cagle marched into office with Bucky Badger and members of the U.W. Marching Band as the State Bar of Wisconsin’s 60th president on Wednesday night at the State Bar’s Annual Meeting & Conference in Lake Geneva.
Nineteen former State Bar presidents, including Madison Attorney Michelle Behnke, who emceed the event, passed the gavel to Cagle.
“I’ve known Ralph all my legal career,” said Behnke. “I know a thing or two about how he will handle the responsibility that he is going to undertake today.”
Sharing stories of Cagle’s mentorship to her as a young lawyer, Behnke described Cagle as someone who deeply cares about fellow lawyers and is willing to serve and lead.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack administered the oath of office. Cagle assumes a one-year term on July 1, succeeding outgoing State Bar President Robert Gagan of Green Bay, who becomes immediate past president.
Cagle, who came to Wisconsin from the East Coast in his early 20s, spent 25 of his 40-year legal career at U.W. Law School – as director of what is now the Lawyering Skills
Program and teaching professional responsibility courses.
For more information contact Katie Stenz, public relations coordinator, State Bar of Wisconsin. She can be reached at org kstenz wisbar wisbar kstenz org, or by phone at (608) 250-6025.
He retired just this month. But he has also spent much of his career advising lawyers and law firms on professional discipline and malpractice cases, currently as of counsel with Hurley Burish & Stanton in Madison, and he’ll continue a mediation practice.
In short, Cagle knows lawyers, and spoke of the important work lawyers do.
“Lawyers do much of the heavy lifting needed to make our legal system fair and our communities whole and successful.” Look around Wisconsin, he said, and “you will consistently find lawyers planted firmly in the soil of community betterment.”
