Wisconsin Lawyer
Vol. 80, No. 9, September 2007

When the Going Gets Nasty, …

by George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director

If he didn't say it first, Ronald Reagan said it most memorably: "There they go again!"

As part of the State of Wisconsin's biennial budget recently approved by the Wisconsin State Assembly, Rep. Frank Lasee of Bellevue declared that we have too many "ambulance-chasing" lawyers, as he convinced members of the majority party caucus to eliminate state support for the U.W. Law School.

Mr. Lasee went on to make pronouncements that have nothing to do with reality.

"There are too many lawyers in Wisconsin," said Lasee. In fact, Wisconsin has relatively few resident lawyers per capita, with 2.6 lawyers per 1,000 residents, versus a national average of 3.7 lawyers per 1,000 residents.

"We don't need more ambulance chasers," said Lasee. In fact, even one "ambulance chaser" would be one too many - that's called barritry and lawyers lose their law license for doing things like that. In addition, a 2005 survey of Wisconsin lawyers showed that the top five legal services provided by Wisconsin lawyers are far less attention-grabbing than the "ambulance chaser" label suggests: preparing wills, preparing power of attorney documents, preparing deeds, assisting with real property sales and purchases, and preparing articles of incorporation.

"We don't need frivolous lawsuits," said Lasee. This is yet another straw-man argument that ignores the reality that frivolous lawsuits routinely get thrown out of court, the parties and their lawyers can be fined, and the lawyers can face discipline.  Moreover, a new report on litigation patterns released by the United States Chamber of Commerce ("Lawsuit Climate 2007: Rating the States"), ranked Wisconsin among the 10 best states overall.

"And we don't need attorneys making people's lives miserable when they go to family court for divorces," said Lasee. Well, to paraphrase the mantra of another organization, "Lawyers don't divorce people, people divorce people." We all recognize that divorce can be one of the most difficult of all legal matters for the parties and the lawyers, but I doubt that cutting funds for the law school will make those difficult cases any easier.

Mr. Lasee has said that he just wants to bring attention to an issue that is important to him. But raising an issue is one thing and launching misleading attacks on thousands of dedicated Wisconsin lawyers who are doing precisely what society asks of them is another.

Our country was founded and has become great, in large part, because we cherish and advance the rule of law. It is by no means a perfect system; every lawyer and every judge can offer a list of improvements. But when individuals, especially public officials, use their bully pulpit to make pronouncements with no basis in fact that serve to undermine public confidence in the rule of law, they are undermining the very system that allows them to make those pronouncements.

Wisconsin Lawyer