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New Facility Reflects Bar's
National Reputation of Service

By Dianne Molvig

Habermann wasn't off by much. A second story to the West Wilson Street building was added in 1969, and if all goes according to plan, the Bar will be moving into a new, larger headquarters in 1999.

As State Bar Past President Steve Sorenson sees it, the new State Bar Center will align the Bar's physical facility with its national reputation. "The Wisconsin Bar is noted as one of the top bar associations in the nation, in terms of its products, its staff, and its commitment to its members and the public," Sorenson says. "But we've been chiseling away at our strengths by the limitations imposed by the physical structure."

The new Center will be a 40,000-square-foot facility located in the American Center Office Park near the intersection of Highway 151 and Interstate 90/94 on Madison's northeast side. The ground-breaking ceremony took place on July 2, and the building should be ready for occupancy by next summer.

The Bar's first home

Building a new center is a major step for the Bar today, just as it was 40 years ago. In 1958 when Habermann wrote his projections, the Bar had been in its small rented office a block off the Capitol Square for 10 years. Before that, the Bar had had no home of its own. The Bar was founded in 1878, and during its first 42 years, its headquarters were transient, residing in the office of whoever was serving as the association's secretary. That arrangement continued until 1920, when the state law librarian's office became the Bar's quarters. When Habermann came on board in 1948 as the Bar's first employee, the time seemed right for the association to have its own office.

Eventually that, too, proved inadequate. "We had only 2,200 members when I opened the office," recalls Habermann, a Bar member since 1947, who's now retired and residing in Madison. "But we were admitting 500 to 700 new lawyers a year, as a lot of the post-war classes were coming along. By 1954 or '55, we faced the necessity of renting larger quarters or getting a building of our own."

The Wilson Street facility, which included some 3,400 square feet of office space on the main floor plus a full basement, was easily more than six times the size of the rented office Habermann and his four coworkers had moved from. "Our staff almost rattled around in the new building," Habermann says, "and it was wonderful."

Benefits Habermann noticed right away included the availability of meeting space for Bar committees and a tremendous boost in the association's capacity to stay in touch with its then 6,700 members. New equipment for printing, addressing, and mailing - which wouldn't have fit in the old office - allowed the Bar to become a more effective communications hub.

Growth cycles

Continuing to respond to requests for more and different services by a growing membership, it wasn't long before the Bar needed more space. The Bar Center underwent extensive remodeling and additional construction over the years, finally bringing the building to its current 20,000 square feet. As early as 10 years ago the Facilities Committee recognized the Bar would eventually outgrow its current facility if programming were to keep pace with its membership - now at 19,582.

New continuing education programs, launched in 1970 to serve the Bar's then 8,302 members, translated into burgeoning needs for space to store materials, which led to construction of an underground storage room below the rear parking lot. Other Bar programs and services also expanded. In 1981, with membership at 12,496, an addition was built, bringing the facility to its current 20,000 square feet. Since then, the building interior has gone through repeated cycles of remodeling and reconfiguring - plus renting outside space for storage and printing - to accommodate a growing Bar, now with 19,582 members, and its staff.

"It's become a honeycomb," says Stevens Point attorney Gerald O'Brien, who chairs the Bar's Facilities Committee. "I got started in Bar activities in the early 1980s, and back then you could get around in there. But little by little over the years, it's become impossible. How does anybody work in there? People's workspaces have been subdivided down to telephone-booth size, and storage space is practically zero. To a person who visited the Center on a regular basis over that period of time, it was really obvious how bad it was getting."

Making cramped office space even more problematic is the nature of the work most of the 85 full-time-equivalent State Bar employees perform, points out Stephen Smay, executive director. "We have a high level of noise and commotion because we have so many people crammed together," Smay says. "A high percentage of people who work at the Bar are on the telephone, coordinating meetings and doing things other than quietly sitting at their desks."

Meeting and conference rooms long ago were sacrificed to create work areas. Many meetings that once could be held at the Bar Center now have to be convened at hotels and other locations, creating inefficiencies for members and staff. "That involves the staff going someplace else," Smay notes, "and getting the materials organized to go someplace else, and paying rental fees."

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