Legal News & Trends

BAPR to undergo ABA review

The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently accepted an American Bar Association (ABA) offer to review and evaluate the Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility (BAPR), the supreme court agency that regulates lawyer discipline. The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility will conduct the evaluation in mid-July at no cost to the Wisconsin court system. The ABA's confidential report will be submitted to the supreme court by Sept. 7, in time for the supreme court's Sept. 14 public hearing on BAPR and the structure of Wisconsin's lawyer discipline system.

A team of five or six experts from the ABA Standing Committee on Professional Discipline will conduct the evaluation. The team will spend approximately five days interviewing BAPR staff, board members and other volunteers, bar officials, complainants, respondents' counsel, and members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the judiciary. The team also will review court rules, reports, and statistics, and sample disciplinary files.

BAPR Chair Sharren Rose welcomes the ABA review. "The BAPR board has previously considered using the ABA's services," she recalls. "This visit should be very helpful. The ABA team will provide useful input concerning how our system compares with those of other states and how we can do better. It's a healthy process that every agency should undertake regularly."

The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility assists judges and lawyers nationwide in developing, coordinating, and strengthening discipline enforcement. Since its inception in 1980, the evaluation program has been used in more than 35 states - including Wisconsin in 1986.

Send unclaimed IOLTA funds to state

Attorneys with unclaimed Interest on Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA) funds should forward them to the State of Wisconsin Unclaimed Property Section, not IOLTA, according to Tom Heine, Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation director.

"A Primer on Trust Accounting in Wisconsin," published in the June 1998 Wisconsin Lawyer, states "funds that cannot be traced to a client, after diligent inquiry, due to uncashed checks, unrounded cents, errors in management of the account, and so on, should be sent to IOLTA." However, these funds should in fact be sent to the state's Unclaimed Property Section at P.O. Box 2114, Madison, WI 53701-2114; telephone (608) 267-7977.

For more information on managing trust accounts and complying with the recordkeeping requirements of SCR 20:1.15, see the June 1998 Wisconsin Lawyer.

Suggestions for improving statute editorial style?

The state Legislative Reference Bureau, the support agency that provides drafting services to the Legislature, has created a style committee to review the Wisconsin Statutes drafting policies. The committee seeks comments from attorneys for improving legislative drafting style.

The focus of the review is on the style issues of the statutes, including spelling, grammar, punctuation, word usage, and capitalization, rather than the statute's substance. Forward comments relating to bills and the statutes by Aug. 31 to attorney Paul Nilsen at P.O. Box 2037, Madison, WI 53701-2037, fax: (608) 264-8522.

Contact DFI for business-related companies

If you're looking for information on companies doing business in Wisconsin - names of registered agents, annual reports, and so on - contact the Corporations Division of the Department of Financial Institutions (DFI). Three years ago a government reorganization shifted responsibility for business-related matters from the Secretary of State's office to the Corporate Division of the DFI, which can be reached at (608) 261-7577. You also can visit the division's Web site.

Having trouble with your briefs?

The Clerk's office of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has noticed that some parties' briefs are in contradiction to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32 (a) (3), which states "[A] brief must be bound in any manner that is secure, does not obscure the text, and permits the brief to lie reasonably flat when open." The Advisory Committee on Circuit Rules is interested in any comments attorneys may have about the rule and how it affects their practices.

Send any comments by Aug. 31 to: Gino J. Agnello, Clerk U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 219 S. Dearborn St., Room 2722, Chicago, IL 60604.

Conference to address workplace disability discrimination

"Disability discrimination is the fastest rising area of discrimination litigation," says Ilan Chorosky, AIDS Network legal services coordinator. "And with state and national legislation that will make it possible for more people with disabilities to join the workforce, the time is right to take a hard look at workplace disability discrimination issues."

That hard look will come in the form of a two-day conference, held Aug. 12 - 13 at Madison's Monona Terrace Convention Center. Sponsored by the State Bar Public Interest Law Section, the AIDS Network, the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities Client Assistance Program, and the American Civil Liberties Union, "Disability Discrimination in the Workplace" will address developments in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), discrimination in public and private benefits, and the litigation of an ADA case.

The conference will feature national and local ADA experts, including Jeff Scott Olson of the Jeff Scott Olson Law Firm and Bob Gregg of Boardman, Suhr, Curry & Field. Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. Tammy Baldwin also have been invited to speak.

While particular attention will be paid to HIV/AIDS discrimination, the conference will address broader ADA issues. "Most of the case law that applies to HIV/AIDS discrimination applies to all disability discrimination - cancer, physical disabilities, mental disabilities," says Chorosky. "The conference also will look at workplace discrimination from both a plaintiff and defense perspective."

The two-day conference is $190. For more information, or to register, contact Lynne Solomon at the AIDS Network at (608) 252-6540, ext. 38, or (800) 486-6276.

ABA to Consider multidisciplinary practices

In a sharp break with existing U.S. law, a special American Bar Association (ABA) commission unanimously recommended that lawyers be allowed to partner with professionals from other disciplines in multidisciplinary practices (MDPs).

MDPs are partnerships, professional corporations, or other associations that include lawyers and nonlawyers and offer both legal and nonlegal services to clients. MDPs have been barred in the U.S. since 1969, although the District of Columbia allows law firms that are devoted solely to the practice of law to extend partnerships to nonlawyers.

"These changes would allow clients more options in where they obtain legal services and lawyers more choices in how they serve clients, but maintain the core values of the legal profession and the protection to clients and the public that those values guarantee," said Miami attorney Sherwin P. Simmons, chair of the ABA Commission on Multidisciplinary Practice.

The commission urged the ABA to change its Model Rules of Professional Conduct to allow fee-sharing between lawyers and other owners of MDPs and to apply legal ethics rules to the MDPs and subject them to court regulation.

The commission cited independence of professional judgment, protection of confidential client information, and avoidance of conflicting loyalties as core values that exist to protect the public and that are essential to preserving attorney-client relationships. In addition to explicitly reinforcing those obligations, the commission's proposal noted that ethics rules governing lawyers would be ascribed to nonlawyer members of the MDPs, and would require each MDP to certify annually to the highest court in every jurisdiction where it functions that it complies with specific obligations placed on lawyers.

"The State Bar Professional Ethics Committee has considered a number of requests from Wisconsin lawyers about combining or affiliating with other professionals," says Dean Dietrich, chair of the committee. "In the past, the committee has cautioned attorneys that Wisconsin Supreme Court rules require very clear and delineated separation between the practice of law and other professional practices. As the debate and discussion continues on MDPs, the committee will assess whether to ask the State Bar Board of Governors to seek an amendment to the rules that may be similar to the ABA's proposal."

After a public hearing on Aug. 8, the commission will then present its recommendations to the ABA House of Delegates during the ABA's Annual Meeting in Atlanta on Aug. 9 -10. House adoption at that meeting would not change the rules immediately; the House of Delegates would direct the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility to draft formal amendments for ratification at a subsequent meeting.

For more information on MDPs, see the article "Multidisciplinary Practices: Service Packages of the Future?" in the April 1999 issue of Wisconsin Lawyer.

Wisconsin to use new citation system in 2000

The much-discussed public domain citation system becomes a reality for the Wisconsin legal community on Jan. 1, 2000.

Last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously approved the use of a universal citation system, which had originally been proposed by the State Bar and the Judicial Council in 1995. The approved system changes the citation method for any published opinions of the supreme court or the court of appeals to one that is independent of any particular printed version. The supreme court order requires that all opinions published after Jan. 1 follow the proposed citation requirements.

Currently, an initial pinpoint citation from the supreme court reads: Blue v. Green, 98 Wis. 2d 296, 304, 456 N.W. 2d, 234, 242, noting the page numbers of both the state's official reporters. The new system requires the year of the decision, the name of the court issuing the decision, the sequential number of the opinion assigned by the court at the time of its release, and the paragraph number, which would remain consistent in all publications. Under the new system, a supreme court citation would read: Blue v. Green, 1999 Wis 123, 4.

For a historical look at the evolution of Wisconsin's citation system, please see "What's the Fuss? Clarifying the Citation Debate," "What is the Citation Proposal?" and "President's Perspective" in the February 1995 Wisconsin Lawyer. Watch for an article on the new citation system in an upcoming Wisconsin Lawyer.

The recently published Universal Citation Guide explains the citation system for every court, constitution, and administrative regulation in the United States. Written by the American Association of Law Librarians' Committee on Citation Formats, the publication is available from the State Bar for $15, plus tax and shipping. For more information, or to order, contact the State Bar at (608) 257-3838 or (800) 728-7788.

Waukesha County establishing pro se litigation center

"No one can dispute that pro se litigation numbers are on the rise and that pro se litigants present unique problems to the system, court staff, and particularly judges," says Acting Chief Judge Kathryn W. Foster, Judicial Administrative District III, Waukesha County. To address those problems, Foster is working to establish a pro se litigation center she hopes will meet the needs of pro se litigants and improve the administration of justice by bringing lawyers, court clerks and staff, county board supervisors and executives, court commissioners and judges, and mediation services together in one place - most probably in an office in the remodeled Waukesha County Courthouse.

Foster initially conducted a survey of both litigants and clerk of courts staff to assess the need for the center. Since then, work on this project has included meeting with court staff, visiting a pro se center in Phoenix, establishing a working committee, and identifying funding sources. If all goes as planned, the center will open in January 2000. (Reported by Amanda Todd)

State Bar sections offer fast-track Y2K dispute resolution

The State Bar's new Y2K Dispute Resolution Program provides a timely and cost-efficient way to resolve legal disputes that develop as the Millennium Bug approaches as 1999 winds down.

Developed by the State Bar Business Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) sections, the project helps Wisconsin businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governmental units cope with the peculiar challenges of Y2K legal disputes by reducing the time frames within which the parties to a Y2K dispute and their attorneys would normally prepare and submit their cases to a selected mediator or arbitrator. "The shortest possible turnaround time is the watchword of the project," says Larry Kahn, a member of the project coordinating committee and incoming chair of the ADR Section.

The program uses ADR Section mediators and arbitrators who have undergone specialized training in Y2K and related legal issues. ADR Section members who are experienced mediators or arbitrators and wish to serve as Y2K mediators or arbitrators must attend a full-day training session, which will be held Sept. 14 at the new Bar Center. "It's very important that disputants and their attorneys know that their selected neutrals are up to date and not learning the technology while the clock is ticking," says Terry Peppard, a Business Law Section and project committee member.

"Instructors for the training program will be technical and legal experts with a command of the Y2K environment. The program will match the needs of business lawyers and their clients with the skills of the ADR professionals," says Kahn.

To register for the seminar, which is $159, contact the State Bar at (608) 257-3838 or (800) 728-7788.

For more information about the new Y2K Dispute Resolution Program and the mandatory mediator/arbitrator training session, contact Larry Kahn at (414) 226-2495; Terry Peppard at (608) 233-7799; Roy Nelson at (414) 276-2850; or Tom Sylke at (414) 964-2317.

Wisconsin Lawyer