Book Reviews

If you are interested in reviewing a book, please contact Karlé Lester at the State Bar, P.O. Box 7158, Madison, WI 53707-7158. Or, direct dial Karlé at (608) 250-6127. To purchase any book listed or reviewed in this column, please contact the book's publisher or ask your local bookstore to order it for you.

Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin

By Bradden C. Backer, Kim E. Patterson and Robert K. Sholl (Madison, WI: State Bar CLE Books, 1996). 170+ pgs. $29 plus shipping, tax. To order, call (800) 362-8096.

Reviewed by
Peter M. Reinhardt

Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin is a welcome addition to the limited body of literature that specifically deals with employment law issues encountered under Wisconsin's statutory and case law. Part desktop reference book and part legal treatise, I recommend it as a starting place when looking for answers to questions regarding the hiring and discharge process in Wisconsin.

The book has its origins in the three-volume Employment Law in Wisconsin Treatise. The authors of Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin have managed to condense much of the information on hiring and firing from the treatise into an easy-to-use format. As a result, it is equally valuable to an employment law specialist, general practitioner or human resource professional.

The book is divided into two general sections. Part one, which focuses on hiring, begins with an overview of the discriminatory hiring practices. Subsequent chapters in the book's first section are devoted to particular stages of the hiring process. Topics covered include recruiting and interviews, credit reports and reference checks, pre-employment testing and screening, and the hiring decision.

The book's second section focuses on issues frequently encountered when ending the employment relationship. Part two begins by defining and explaining the different types of termination and identifying limitations on an employer's right to end the employment relationship. Subsequent chapters in part two discuss issues to consider and analyze before deciding to terminate an employee and types of required and discretionary payments after termination. Part two ends by reviewing the troublesome topic of references.

While Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin is organized in a format that is easy to use, the book's organization is not its most distinctive feature. What truly stands out and separates the book from other reference materials is the authors' ability to identify legal issues commonly encountered in the discharge and hiring process and to discuss those issues in a succinct and understandable manner.

Each chapter in the book identifies key legal issues of which the reader should be aware and explains and summarizes the black letter law applicable to those issues. These summaries often are accompanied by practical examples that illustrate how a particular legal principle has been or may be applied to an employment law issue. In addition, the summaries are supported by numerous footnotes to state and federal law, including statutes, case law and code sections. The footnotes are drafted with painstaking detail, and often contain comments regarding the case or statute cited. Although the book's title references only Wisconsin law, an equivalent amount of federal law is cited and explained in the footnotes.

Many of the book's sections contain practice tips, notes, comments and caveats. These subsections contain useful information and suggestions, including potential traps for the unwary, that are particularly helpful to individuals working on a day-to-day basis in employment law. The book concludes with an appendix of guides, forms and checklists applicable to the hiring and termination process.

Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin is a necessary and relatively inexpensive addition to the employment law library of an employment specialist, general practitioner or human resource professional. Unlike most other reference books, Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin will not gather dust.

Peter M. Reinhardt practices with Bakke Normal Law Office in Menomonie.

Intellectual Property in Europe

By Guy Tritton (London: Sweet & Maxwell Ltd., 1996). 803 pgs. Hardcover. 95. ISBN: 0 421 542306.

Reviewed by
Prof. Ramon A. Klitzke

Since the first intellectual property convention in 1883, the Paris Convention, few areas of law have been subjected to so much international scrutiny and legislation. Europe is in a period of astonishing development of intellectual property rights; the European Court of Justice is busy with the interrelationship of intellectual property rights, and Dutch courts have granted pan-European injunctions against patent infringement.

Most domestic intellectual property laws of European Community (E.C.) members are derived from international conventions or E.C. legislation and differences in national intellectual property rights have diminished immeasurably. Today's legal advisor cannot rely only upon the law of any single jurisdiction.

As of April 1, 1996, an E.C. Trade Mark may be applied for. The "Madrid Protocol" profoundly simplifies trademark applications and the E.C. Commission "Trade Mark Directive" has substantially harmonized domestic laws of member states. Other E.C. Commission directives provide legal protection for computer programs, copyright rental, lending and neighboring rights, harmonization of copyright terms, and satellite and cable retransmissions. There are proposals for a community design and database protection. The community has introduced a Community Plant Variety Right and a Supplementary Protection Certificate for patented pharmaceutical products. The 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Plant Varieties has been signed by most European countries, but not yet ratified.

In Intellectual Property in Europe, author barrister Guy Tritton, of London's Middle Temple, has provided lawyers and legal scholars with a comprehensive work on European property rights. Because of the high degree of harmonization between states, it is not a repetitious country-by-country view of intellectual property. The book examines the founding treaties, conventions and legislation and emphasizes any differences between European states.

Following an introduction, the book covers European patents, trademarks, copyrights and design protection. There are chapters on enforcement, licensing, joint ventures, franchising and abuse of a dominant position. Each chapter is carefully organized and ample footnotes on each page direct the reader to numerous cases, statutes, conventions and other important materials. Extensive tables of cases, treaties and conventions, and E.C. regulations complete the thorough treatment of European intellectual property law.

Ramon A. Klitzke is Professor Emeritus, Marquette University Law School. He taught intellectual property, antitrust law and administrative law.

The Price of a Dream:
The Story of the Grameen Bank
and the Idea that is Helping
the Poor to Change Their Lives

By David Bornstein (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 350 pgs. $25. To order, call (212) 698-7000.

Reviewed by
William R. Hotz

I picked up The Price of a Dream expecting a straightforward story about the founding and growth of Grameen Bank, an institution often thought of as the prototype "development bank." Grameen Bank has attracted worldwide attention as an innovative for-profit institution that makes small loans to some of the poorest of the poor, to enable them to purchase the assets they need to build their own economic future. As a bank lawyer with an interest in alchemy, I looked forward to learning more about it.

I was disappointed to find myself reading something that at first sounded more like a travelogue about rural Bangladesh and its people, than the history of a bank. But when I finished, I realized that author David Bornstein had skillfully delivered more than I expected.

The Price of a Dream isn't just about Grameen Bank and the vision of Muhammad Yunus, the American-educated economist who developed the winning combination of elements to make the bank a success in his native Bangladesh. It's about the lives the bank has touched and the culture to which it is adapted - with some insightful observations on antipoverty and international development programs on the side.

Yunus' concept is a direct challenge to the "trickle-down" theory that suggests that the best way to fight poverty is to put money in the hands of employers and professional aid-givers. A development bank works from the bottom up, putting money directly into the hands of the poor.

Grameen Bank's success lies in unlocking the poor's entrepreneurial potential by offering them a way to purchase the means of production. In rural Bangladesh that may be a cow for a farmer, a sewing machine for a dressmaker or inventory for a peddler. Unfortunately, in urban America similar investment opportunities for small-scale self-employed entrepreneurs seem more limited.

Bornstein doesn't suggest that the particular mix of elements that has made Grameen Bank successful in rural Bangladesh will work in urban America. However, some elements of the Grameen Bank's approach could be part of an as-yet-to-be-determined combination of elements that leads to an equally successful program here. For example, Grameen borrowers are organized into small groups that meet regularly. Those groups do more than provide training and mutual support; they help make lending decisions and decide who will be admitted as a member of the group. That's appropriate, because each group member is effectively a guarantor of any loan made to a group member. Interestingly, some of those elements were once (but are no longer) a part of the institutions that evolved into today's credit unions and savings and loans.

Yunus' challenge to conventional wisdom is worth exploring. And The Price of a Dream is worth reading -especially for some of us holdovers from the '60s, who still occasionally like to think that the creative aspects of the law can help make the world a better place.

William R. Hotz, U.W. 1970, is a shareholder in the Milwaukee law firm of von Briesen, Purtell & Roper S.C., where he concentrates in financial institutions law. Before returning to his native Milwaukee, he served as secretary and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.