Profile: Gerald Mowris
A Time to Take Stock
The State Bar has many good programs that Bar
members and the public often know little or nothing about, contends New
State Bar President Gerry Mowris. He aims to change that.
DID YOU KNOW THAT Wisconsin's teachers are learning how to
help their students resolve conflicts through peer mediation, thanks to
a joint project of the State Bar of Wisconsin and the state Department
of Justice? Or that the Bar, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Supreme
Court, provides instruction about the workings of the justice system to
teachers, who can then pass along that information to students? Were you
aware that volunteers from the Participation of Women in the Bar
Committee bring children to visit their mothers in prison to ease the
trauma of separation?
Madison attorney Gerald Mowris would wager that many Bar members have
never heard of these and many other projects of the Bar and its various
committees, sections, and divisions. That's why, as the newly sworn-in
State Bar president, he's breaking a tradition of sorts. Unlike most of
his predecessors, Mowris is launching no new presidential initiatives
during his term. Rather, his emphasis will be on boosting awareness
about the Bar's existing programs.
"When these programs are started, often there's a big hullabaloo,"
Mowris points out, "and then they're forgotten. But these are good
programs - in many cases driven by volunteers, both attorneys and Bar
staff members. One of the things I want to do is to publicize the
availability of these programs out in the communities, so that more
people are aware of what the State Bar does. Even lawyers often don't
know about these programs."
Building on Past Efforts
Promoting current Bar programs will bring multiple benefits, Mowris
believes. Not only do these projects offer help to people in diverse
ways, but greater awareness of these programs also will elevate the
general public's attitudes about lawyers. Plus, "lawyers will feel
better about what they do," Mowris adds, "and about what the State Bar
does. I think if more lawyers knew that the Bar works on the peer
mediation program, or if they knew that the Bar provides materials to go
out to talk to high school students about their rights and
responsibilities when they turn 18, then more lawyers would be
interested in doing things like that, too. They'd want to participate.
We could reinvigorate some of our programs that way."
In a sense, Mowris's mission this year could be described as taking
stock of what the Bar is already doing. Taking stock, however, is not to
be equated with standing still. Besides publicizing existing programs,
Mowris wants to spur self-examination. Which programs are working well?
How could they be even better? How can the Bar get more attorneys
actively involved?
Beyond that, Mowris wants to build upon certain efforts begun under
prior presidential initiatives. The Public Trust and Confidence in the
Justice System project, created in 1999 during Leonard Loeb's tenure,
was a joint project of the state supreme court, the Bar, and the
Wisconsin League of Women Voters, aimed at scrutinizing fairness - and
the public's perception of fairness - within the justice system. After
weighing input from judges, attorneys, litigants, defendants, clerks of
court, jurors, and others, the committee proposed an action plan. "I'm
committed to carrying that project to the next stage," Mowris says. "We
could try some of the actions outlined in the committee's report and see
if those are successful in turning around people's perception of the
system."
Looming large on the horizon for the year ahead, and possibly for
many years to come, is the Seize the Future project, stemming from a
conference convened during immediate Past President Gary Bakke's term.
Now that the State Bar Board of Governors has adopted the seven-part
Seize the Future Resolution (see www.wisbar.org/bar/stf/stf.html), Bar
committees and a special commission will study ways to implement various
changes while also preserving the legal profession's core values.
Unlike what attorneys often assume, Seize the Future is about much
more than multidisciplinary practice (MDP), Mowris emphasizes. "There
are a lot of concepts in Seize the Future that I think we need to
examine," he notes, "beyond just MDPs. That one seems to be the
lightning rod. But there are other issues, such as figuring out ways to
help lawyers unbundle their services so they can provide their services
to people at reasonable rates."
While MDP may be the most charged aspect of the Seize the Future
concept, Mowris believes lawyers can devise workable solutions that
eventually will win broad support. "There are a lot of easy clichés
both ways," he says, "that make people pro- or anti-MDPs. I think a
better approach is to look at elements of the MDP concept that would be
of benefit to lawyers, if we can figure out ways to massage our rules
without compromising the ethical concerns. We'll continue to work on
that."
"The Bar's function is to help lawyers do their job better, and the
Bar president coordinates that effort. That's really what I see as my
job."
– Gerry Mowris
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Making Connections
The Bar's law-related education programs, the Public
Trust and Confidence action plan, and the Seize the Future project,
might seem, on the surface, to be separate concerns. But in fact these
all link together, Mowris points out. As just one example, lawyers'
resistance to changing the way they practice - such as clinging to the
billable hour rather than unbundling legal services - erodes public
trust and confidence. People feel they can't go to a lawyer for help
without spending a small fortune. "All of this is interrelated," Mowris
notes. "It all relates back to what lawyers do."
Another of Mowris's goals as president is to make more attorneys feel
that the Bar is their organization, including some who historically have
felt left on the fringes. "Some attorneys don't see the Bar as being
pertinent to their lives," he says. "I'd like to get their input to find
out what we could do to help them." He's already solicited that kind of
information from leaders of the State Bar's Government Lawyers Division,
and he'll make similar overtures to other Bar constituents, such as
young lawyers, nonresident lawyers, women attorneys, minority bar
associations, and local bar groups.
Mowris also is hoping to forge other kinds of connections. The State
Bar currently partners with many outside entities to produce quality CLE
programs. Mowris wants to expand that kind of partnering. For instance,
currently the state Department of Justice runs its own training program
for prosecuting attorneys. In the future, the department could partner
with the State Bar to present educational seminars that could bring both
prosecutors and defense attorneys together. "I think it's healthy to get
a view of what it's like to be on the other side," Mowris says. "Both
groups can learn from each other."
He's speaking from personal experience, having himself been in both
camps during his legal career. He was a Dane County district attorney
for six years before switching to private practice criminal defense work
22 years ago. Mowris also served as a defense lawyer in the U.S. Army
Judge Advocates General (JAG) Division while he was a district attorney,
and while working as a criminal defense attorney in his private life, he
was a JAG prosecutor, altogether serving 21 years as a JAG lawyer.
"I know when I was a prosecutor, I learned a lot when I went to
national meetings where there were not only other prosecutors, but also
defense lawyers," Mowris says. "I think it helps the lawyers and it
helps the system for prosecutors and defense lawyers to get together
once in a while. We learn that we both have the same goal in mind, which
is to make the system work. So I'm a believer in the collaborative
approach."
Mowris also has his eye on educational efforts of another sort, in
this case aimed at policymakers outside the legal profession whose
decisions often affect lawyers. The recent state budget is a case in
point. Lack of funding for court interpreters runs counter to the Bar's
efforts to enhance public trust and confidence in the justice system. A
5 percent cut in the state public defender's budget has a similar
impact, plus it ultimately means higher costs if the public defender's
office has to lay off staff attorneys. The counties will end up paying
court-appointed private defense attorneys to do what public defenders
could have done more efficiently, and thus less expensively. Such
decisions are "terrible for the system in the long run," Mowris says.
"We need to educate the Legislature and the governor." He'll have a hand
in doing so, just as he's done in the past as an active member of the
Bar's Criminal Law Section.
Making Time
Sitting at his desk in his Madison lakefront office one May
afternoon, his shoes characteristically abandoned to a spot on the floor
nearby, Mowris already has a taste of the demands placed on the Bar
president, even though he'll not officially take office for several more
weeks. "They say the law is a jealous mistress," he jokes, "but it's
nothing compared to the State Bar. They want all my time."
Still, he hopes to somehow squeeze in a few days this year on the
slopes at Indian Head Mountain in Michigan, where he's served for 25
years as a member of the National Ski Patrol, providing emergency
assistance to skiers in trouble. He'll also participate in Madison's
Paddle and Portage race again this summer, as he has numerous times in
the past. Add to that some hours spent on the golf course and helping
out in his wife's garden, plus scheduling in a trip or two to Canada
during the upcoming year to go walleye fishing with his family. Mowris
and wife Leah Sachtjen, a court reporter, have two children. Danae, 21,
is a University of Michigan undergraduate now studying for a year in
France, and Jeffrey, 19, recently finished his first year at the
U.W.-Madison, where his father also attended college and graduated from
law school.
On top of all that, Mowris plans to continue to pour lots of energy
into his criminal defense practice, although he knows he'll need to
scale back somewhat to fulfill his presidential duties. Staying active
in practice is, after all, the best way to stay attuned to the daily
rewards and stresses of his colleagues. "The Bar's function is to help
lawyers do their job better," he notes. "And the Bar president
coordinates that effort. That's really what I see my job to be."
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