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Taking the Profession's
Pulse
Bench-Bar Survey Reveals
Lack of Local Court Rule Standards Among Concerns
The
lack of local court rule standards ranks as the top concern for the legal
profession, according to the 2001 Bench-Bar Survey. Incivility among lawyers
and judges, difficulty in making claims against government entities, complicated
appellate procedures, and stress are other top concerns that quicken the
pulse of survey respondents.
by Dianne Molvig
 Two
years ago, a Wisconsin Lawyer article summarizing the findings of the
State Bar's 1999 Bench-Bar Survey carried the subtitle, "Lack
of civility still a major concern among respondents." Reading the
results of the 2001 survey evokes a measure of déjà vu.
Again this year, judges and attorneys from across the state expressed
strong feelings about incivility in the legal profession, as well as local
rules of civil procedure, making claims against government entities, appellate
procedures, and other subjects. In fact, sentiments on many of these issues
registered at much the same level this year as in 1999 and, in some cases,
as in 1997, the first year the biennial survey appeared in its current
format.
"I think it's important to keep pointing out the recurring issues,"
says Neal Nettesheim, District II court of appeals judge and Bench-Bar
Committee member, "particularly in those areas where we're speaking with
nearly one voice. There is a groundswell of support for certain changes."
This article examines in detail several survey items for which a substantial
majority of respondents (roughly two-thirds or more) came down on the
same side of an issue. For a brief synopsis of the rest of the survey's
findings, see the accompanying sidebar, "Additional Survey Results."
We'll also look at a topic new to the 2001 survey: the stress legal
professionals feel as they go about their daily business. "In 1999, 91
percent of those surveyed indicated that practicing law or being a judge
is becoming more stressful each year," reports Madison attorney Donald
Leo Bach, chair of the survey subcommittee. "In the 2001 survey, we attempted
to find out some of the causes of that stress."
Respondents included 415 attorneys and 249 judges and court commissioners,
for response rates of 27 percent and 55 percent, respectively, from those
who originally received the questionnaires by mail last July. Milwaukee
County accounted for 26 percent of responses, with 19 percent from Dane
County, and 55 percent from the rest of the state. Respondents' median
year of law school graduation was 1977. The questionnaire asked respondents
to register their reactions to 29 statements on a scale of 1 for "strongly
disagree" to 7 for "strongly agree." Another option was "no opinion";
these responses were excluded in calculating average scores for each statement.
The
Local Rules Quagmire 
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