1997 Annual Report
State Bar of Wisconsin
Fiscal Year July 1, 1996 - June 30, 1997
A Year of Public Outreach and Member Service
During the past year the State Bar of Wisconsin worked to increase
its outreach to the public and consider new programs to bridge the
information gap between the general public and the legal profession.
Public service and public outreach were important initiatives that
marked President David Saichek's term, as well as his creation of two
commissions that studied the issues of the judiciary as a co-equal
branch of government and the effects of violence on the justice
system.
Media initiatives such as a cable television show and radio public
service announcements assisted the State Bar of Wisconsin in
demonstrating a strong commitment to outreach and education. Successful,
existing programs like the annual High School Mock Trial Tournament kept
the Bar actively involved in communities statewide.
Meanwhile, the State Bar continued its commitment to quality member
services and products to help lawyers deliver cost-effective legal
services in Wisconsin, from CLE seminars and books to videotapes and
much more. And the State Bar expanded its leadership in the area of
technology, earning several national awards for WisBar, its home page.
The Bar's CD-ROM legal research product also gained popularity among
members.
This Annual Report highlights many of the past year's activities and
programs for lawyers and the public.
Public Outreach - Understanding the Law
"Law Talk"
In June 1996 the State Bar produced its first 30-minute cable
television program, "Law Talk." The
Cable
and Broadcast Outreach Committee project has grown considerably
since its launch, producing more than 20 programs that have aired on
public access channels in Milwaukee and Madison, with more markets to be
added.
The committee created the show to educate the public about
law-related issues and to help the public understand how to use the
legal system and how it can best serve Wisconsin citizens. The program,
hosted by Iowa County Circuit Court Judge Bill Dyke, focuses on such
issues as bankruptcy, criminal law, city government, schools, sports
law, interviews with Wisconsin Supreme Court justices and the Wisconsin
Attorney General, and legal services for the poor, among other
topics.
High School Mock Trial Tournament
This year's High School Mock Trial Tournament rounds started in
February with more than 1,500 students competing in 149 teams from 105 Wisconsin high
schools. In addition to the 157 coordinators and teacher coaches, more
than 580 lawyers and judges volunteered as attorney coaches and
competition judges. In the end, Superior High School was the Wisconsin
champion, beating Rhinelander in the state finals and earning the right
to compete in the National Mock Trial Tournament in Nashville, Tenn.
Participation in the second annual Mock Trial Journalism Contest more
than doubled this past year, with 30-plus students participating to
match up their journalism skills with other Wisconsin students.
Court With Class
The State Bar, working with the Wisconsin Supreme
Court, has developed the nationally recognized Court With Class program. Coordinated by the
Law-related Education Committee, the program earned an Outstanding
Public Achievement Award from the National Association of Bar Executives
this past year.
The program brought nearly 1,000 students from 50 high schools to the
Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers throughout the school year to observe
the court in session and to speak to justices about law-related issues.
More than 20 schools are on a waiting list to participate in future
events.
Courthouse Visitors Guides
Courthouses and the court system can be a confusing and intimidating
legal maze to those unfamiliar with it. The Courthouse Visitors Guide
project, another State Bar public outreach effort in partnership with
the Wisconsin Supreme Court, makes the system and our courthouses easier
to use.
With the help of local bar leaders, the State Bar so far has produced
visitors guides for 35 courthouses. Each guide includes a directory of
the offices and courts located in the courthouse, their functions and
phone numbers, the courthouse's history, and a floor plan of the
building or complex.
The guides also include a welcome letter from Wisconsin Supreme Court
Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a brief history of the Wisconsin court
system, a diagram showing the different court levels with an explanation
of their responsibilities, and a diagram of the federal and state court
systems.
Radio public service announcements
The State Bar's Professionalism Committee has firmly established a
program of radio public service announcements. Radio stations in
Rhinelander and Eau Claire regularly air the PSAs, which are written by
Wisconsin lawyers about law-related issues of interest to the general
public. Divorce, traffic law, drunk driving, criminal law, home buying
and selling, tax law and other topics have been explored. The program
will expand into other radio markets around the state during the coming
year.
The State Bar's public service announcements are also available
through WisBar on the law-related public resources homepage. Nicknamed
"LegalBytes," each PSA is recorded in Real Audio format,
allowing Internet users from around the state to point, click and listen
to helpful legal information on their personal computers.
Media coordinator project
From the Jeffrey Dahmer trial in Milwaukee to the Tom Monfils trial
in Green Bay and other high-profile cases in between, it is apparent
that working cooperatively with the media is in the best interests of
lawyers and judges.
For the first time, the State Bar brought together media
representatives and judges at the Judicial Conference in October 1996 to
foster a greater dialogue between the judges and the media. "Let's face
it, cameras in our courtrooms and media coverage in general serve a
significant public interest," said Steve Ritt, a Wisconsin media
attorney and chair of the subcommittee that established the program. "We
as legal practitioners should do what we can to make our legal system
work more effectively in this regard," he said.
The program attracted more than 30 news directors, editors and others
from radio, television and newspapers and was repeated in an expanded
format at the Judicial Conference in 1997.
Commissions Study Violence in the Judiciary, Judiciary as a
Co-equal Branch
President David Saichek created two commissions on Violence and the
Judiciary and the Judiciary as a Co-Equal Branch of Government. Studies
included statewide public hearings to gather input from Wisconsin
citizens on ways to better improve the legal system. The recommendations
from both commissions were presented to the Board of Governors in the
spring of 1997 and sent to various state agencies and all
legislators.
The Judiciary
Commission report included recommendations to develop formal
communications among the three branches of government to foster better
understanding of their functions, promote informal discussions between
branch leaders at the state and county level, increase State Bar support
for local bar efforts to enhance community understanding of the
judiciary's role and create, through the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a task
force on the Quality of the Court System comprised of judges, attorneys,
legislators and citizens to consider methods for judicial
assessment.
Finding practical ways to make courthouses safer was a main objective
of the Violence Commission. Members studied the financial and emotional
impact of violence on litigants, victims, families, juveniles, judges,
attorneys and courthouse staff. The commission gleaned information from
Wisconsin crime charts, circuit and small claims court filing
information and state court funding charts. The commission also gathered
testimony at five public hearings held statewide, from experts on
domestic violence and through questionnaire responses from courthouse
personnel.
The commission's
report contains recommendations covering courthouse security,
domestic and juvenile violence, weapons and alternative justice
programs. Those recommendations range from the simple - teaching school
children how to dial 911 - to the far more complex and politically
charged - banning the sale of so-called junk guns like "Saturday Night
Specials."
During the past year, the Delivery
of Legal Services Commission, appointed by past President John
Skilton, realized several of its 14 recommendations and proposed pilot
projects from 1996. The commission studied how to bring equal justice
closer to reality for all Wisconsin citizens. The enacted
recommendations include a statewide pro bono and legal services delivery
conference, recruiting and recognizing attorneys to participate actively
in pro bono work, a Brown County Courthouse Legal Resource Information
Center, and encouraging free one-half hour initial consultations to
prospective clients.
Technology- Staying at the Forefront
Law Firm Technology Survey
The State Bar's second annual Law Firm
Technology Survey, conducted to see how firms currently use computer
technology in their day-to-day work and how they think their use will
change in the near future, drew responses from 695 law firms
statewide.
The survey found that word processing and document assembly still are
the computer functions law offices use most and WordPerfect remains the
most popular word processing software, although Microsoft Word is making
some gains. The DOS operating system continues to predominate in law
firms, but new computer purchases show a significant shift to Windows
95. As for computer hardware, most law firms use the 486 PC, with the
Pentium ranking second. The survey also found almost 50 percent of the
law firms surveyed had Internet access - up from 30 percent in last
year's survey - and another 11 percent planned to obtain it within a
year.
WisBar and the Internet
WisBar, the State Bar's Internet site, has attracted national
attention since its inception in 1995. In fiscal year 1997, the
legal.online newsletter called WisBar "a superb example of how
a bar association can contribute to making the Internet an essential
resource for lawyers and laypeople alike." Meanwhile, the McKinley
Group's Magellan Internet Directory awarded WisBar three stars (out of four), giving the site
high marks for "depth of coverage" and "ease of exploration." In
addition, WisBar was ranked number one on Martindale-Hubble's Legal
Links' "Top 10 State Bar and Bar Association Web Sites."
To continue moving WisBar into the future, President Saichek created
the Electronic
Bar Services (EBS) Committee, continuing the work of the former
Technology Resource and Ad Hoc Technology committees. During the past
year, the EBS Committee focused on two areas: developing and managing
WisBar and developing a deliberate plan to keep the State Bar at the
forefront of technological advancement.
It is clear that Wisconsin lawyers are turning in increasing numbers
to the Internet in general and to WisBar in particular for information.
By the end of FY 1997, WisBar visitors accessed almost 200,000 pages per
month, up from more than 40,000 pages accessed when the site was
launched in January 1996. This feature-rich site offers:
- 24-hour access to current supreme court and court of appeals
decisions;
- the full text of the Wisconsin Lawyer and other State Bar
publications, complete with links to related cases and statutes;
- noncredit CLE seminars recorded in Real Audio format;
- hundreds of links to the Internet's best legal and governmental
resources;
- online ordering and registration for CLE books, seminars and State
Bar products;
- legislative updates;
- current local court rules; and
- access to information on State Bar member services and
benefits.
LOIS CD-ROM Legal Research
The LOIS CD-ROM research product resulted from the partnership
between the State Bar and Law Office Information Systems (LOIS) to bring
members a Wisconsin law library on CD-ROM at a competitive price. The
CD-ROM includes all Wisconsin primary law, including the Wisconsin
Statutes, administrative code and supreme court and court of appeals
decisions. Subscribers also may purchase CLE Books on the same CD. The
service is updated frequently.
Sales of the LOIS CD-ROM legal research product remained steady
during the past year. In addition, customer satisfaction remained very
high. In a survey conducted during the summer of 1997, 57 percent of
those responding indicated that LOIS was comparable, while 29 percent
said LOIS was superior to competing products with respect to disk
content.
CLE Seminars and Books
Continue Commitment to Quality
Seminars
State Bar CLE Seminars offered nearly 60 program titles during the
past year, presented in 13 live teleseminars, 65 live seminar events and
455 video replay dates, and involved more than 200 volunteer
lawyers.
Seminar registrations for the year totaled more than 13,500, and the
most popular single program title was "Ethical Issues in the Real
World," generating more than 1,700 registrations.
During FY 1997 the seminar program established successful
cosponsorships with the Wisconsin Chapter of American Board of Trial
Advocates and the Corporate Practice Institute in Milwaukee. The
partnerships will continue in the future.
Books
It was a great year for State Bar CLE Books, the most successful
publishing year in its 14-year history. CLE Books worked with more than
300 volunteer authors and reviewers who put in countless hours producing
several new publications.
Five new books were published, including Wisconsin Juvenile Law
Handbook, Guardianship and Protective Placement for the Elderly
in Wisconsin, Advising Older Clients and their Families (Vol.
I), Wisconsin Rules of Evidence: Pocket Edition,
Wisconsin Criminal Code and Selected Traffic Statutes. CLE
Books also produced the Wisconsin Probate Document Assembly
Program, a powerful computer program that helps lawyers manage
informal estate administration, which is a companion to the best-selling
Wisconsin Probate System: A Forms and Procedures Handbook.
In addition to new products, CLE Books supplemented another 25 books
and published new editions of 11 books. The new editions included:
Annual Survey of Wisconsin Law, The Attorney's Guide to the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, A Guide to Wisconsin Statutes
of Limitations, Hiring and Firing in Wisconsin,
Wisconsin Guide to Citation, The Wisconsin Rules of
Evidence: A Courtroom Handbook, Wisconsin Discovery Law and
Practice and four statutory code books.
CLE Books continues to publish many books with accompanying forms on
disk and added several books to the collection already available on the
LOIS CD-ROM.
Along with the quantity came quality. CLE Books won a national award
for excellence in publishing for Hiring and Firing in
Wisconsin, a 170-plus page, softcover reference book, written by
attorneys Brad Backer, Kim Patterson and Rob Sholl.
Other State Bar Activities
Judge of the Year Award
During fiscal 1997 the State Bar Bench-Bar Committee solicited
nominations statewide for the first "Judge of the Year" award, honoring
judicial excellence. Eau Claire County Circuit Court Judge Thomas
Barland was given the honor. The committee also is developing a Jurist
Lifetime Achievement Award.
Government relations
State Bar members and the
government relations team were very active on legislative issues during
the past year. The Lawyers Legislative Action Network, the Bar's local
grassroots program, doubled in size with more than 400 attorneys now
participating.
The Bar's volunteers spent more than 2,000 hours contacting their
legislators and reviewing bills. When added to the government relations
team's time, the total time lobbying for the State Bar was more than
4,300 hours for the first six months of 1997 alone. The Bar was active
on issues such as judicial substitution, child custody, adoption laws,
truth-in-sentencing and court funding. Members also worked on major
statute rewrites on construction lien laws, transfer fees, nonprofit
laws, garnishment and probate.
Lawyer Dispute Resolution
The State Bar's Professionalism Committee developed the Wisconsin
Lawyer Dispute Resolution Program, which uses voluntary mediation and
arbitration, to protect the interests of clients and help resolve
professional and economic disputes that may arise when a law firm
dissolves or one or more attorneys leave a firm. Administered by the
State Bar, the program relies upon the services of mediators and
arbitrators who are paid a set hourly fee by the parties. The program
will be operational by January 1998.
Mentor Council
The Mentor
Council helps new lawyers and law students adapt to the profession
so they can be of greatest service to the public, a credit to the
profession and achieve balance in their personal and professional lives.
Under the program, experienced lawyers and judges are recruited
statewide to act as mentors for new lawyers and law students.
During fiscal 1997 the Mentor Council:
- brought practicing lawyers to the Marquette and U.W. law schools to
paint a realistic picture of the various career choices available to law
students;
- organized a tag-along program for students and new lawyers; and
- developed seven videos to provide a wider audience with the same
information given by individual mentors on a one-to-one basis.
Local bar relations
The annual Wisconsin Bar Leaders Conference was held in conjunction
with the Bar's Midwinter Convention in
January. More than 40 local and specialty bar leaders attended the
conference, which focused on creating opportunities for bar leaders to
learn and share information.
Each year the State Bar funds local and specialty bar public service
projects that can be replicated by other bars. During fiscal 1997, the
Bar's Local Bar Grant Competition Committee
awarded more than $10,000 in grants for various projects, which include
brochures on landlord/tenant law, Wisconsin Chippewa Indian
off-reservation treaty rights, restitution/collection, preventing
violence towards children, and the marriage and the family program;
handbooks for volunteer lawyers on a wide range of family law and
domestic abuse issues; and a training program for parents and foster
parents of children with special needs, and their rights.
Clients Security Fund
The Clients Security Fund was established in 1981 to help victims of
dishonest lawyers. The maximum reimbursement a victim can receive from
the fund is $75,000.
During FY 1997 the Clients Security Fund Committee acted upon nine
claims. Of those, five were approved for payment, three were denied and
one was deferred for further consideration. Total funds available to the
committee during the fiscal year were more than $224,000. The five
claims approved for payment totaled more than $11,000.
In April the supreme court approved an amendment to the Client
Security Fund (CSF) rules, raising to $7 on their dues statement
Wisconsin attorneys' assessment to support CSF. The amendment will make
it possible to raise the fund's sufficiency level from $150,000 to
$200,000.
Resolution of fee disputes
The State Bar's client/attorney
fee dispute arbitration program is a service to the public and
lawyers of Wisconsin. During FY 1997 more than 400 clients, attorneys
and judges contacted the State Bar for program information, resulting in
57 applications received for arbitration hearings.
Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation/IOLTA Account
The Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation became a tenant in the State
Bar building in December 1996. The foundation manages the Interest on
Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA) program in Wisconsin, which uses the
interest paid on lawyers' trust accounts to fund legal services, pro
bono and other law-related programs.
Revenue for the program has increased by almost 50 percent over 1995,
resulting in projected 1998 grants of $1.4 million. That compares to
$1.15 million for 1997, and represents a 65 percent increase over grant
totals for 1996. The increase dramatically reverses the trend in
declining interest begun in 1992. WisTAF grants are made with funds
raised through IOLTA, a program hit hard by declining interest rates and
higher account charges and fees.
"The turnaround was possible because many banks agreed to waive
service charges and transaction fees on IOLTA accounts," said WisTAF
President James Martin. The State Bar worked with WisTAF to ask banks to
waive these charges to help raise the desperately needed funds.
Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program
Approximately one in 15 Wisconsin attorneys, or 7 percent, sought
help for stress or chemical-dependency problems through State Bar
programs during the past seven years.
The Wisconsin
Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP) provides lawyers with needed
confidential help and counseling services. WisLAP's new outreach effort
during the past year sent volunteer speakers to local bar associations,
young lawyers' groups and even law school classes.
Helpline volunteers take calls from members and their families, and
from fellow lawyers or coworkers affected by an attorney's problems. For
stress-related problems, dial (800) 543-2625. For substance abuse
issues, call (800) 254-9154.
Conventions
The State Bar's 1997 Midwinter Convention
attracted nearly 1,000 attorneys to Milwaukee's Hyatt Regency and
Wisconsin Center.
In addition to the CLE programs and numerous networking
opportunities, the Midwinter Convention hosted authoritative speakers,
including Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle, Dean of the Ohio State
University Law School Gregory Williams and West Virginia University Law
Professor Forest Bowman.
The convention also featured the Distinguished Service Award, given
to the Bar's first executive director, Phil Haberman, several other
volunteer awards and the first Judge of the Year Award that went to Eau
Claire County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Barland.
More than 700 attorneys attended the June 1997
Annual Convention, also held in Milwaukee. Speakers included Detroit
Mayor and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer and former
Green Bay Packer star and member of last year's Super Bowl Championship
team Sean Jones.
Ripon attorney Steve Sorenson was sworn in as the State Bar's 42nd
President in June. In addition, Golden Gavel awards were given to
several media representatives to recognize their work in covering legal
issues, and 10 Presidential Awards of Excellence and several other
awards were presented to recognize volunteer contributions during the
year.
At both conventions State Bar sections sponsored a variety of social
functions and educational programs, including sessions on new techniques
for expanding access to justice, demonstrations on legal resources
available on the Internet and the usual plethora of CLE programs.
New toll-free MemberLine
In early 1997 the State Bar established a nationwide, toll-free
"24-hour MemberLine." The service gives members the chance to phone
comments, questions and even requests for State Bar materials into a
special voice mailbox at any time of the day or night (1-800-444-9404,
ext. 6000). Callers do not have to identify themselves, but can do so if
they'd like a response.
The MemberLine gives members another opportunity to phone Bar staff
for prompt service. The messages left on the MemberLine are retrieved by
State Bar staff each day.
Court actions on the practice of law
Again this past fiscal year, the State Bar was proactive on issues
affecting the practice of law in Wisconsin, which led to several
Wisconsin Supreme Court rulings.
In October 1996 the supreme court ordered a revision of a court rule
to permit lawyers to hold themselves out as specialists if they are so
certified by American Bar Association-approved programs. The rule change
was based upon the State Bar's petition on specialty certification and a
related late-1996 public hearing.
In late 1996 the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a State Bar petition
seeking licensing of foreign legal consultants, ruling that the petition
was not entirely consistent with the ABA's 1993 Model Rule for Licensing
of Legal Consultants. The Bar had proposed a system, to be administered
by the Board of Bar Examiners, to allow lawyers licensed in other
countries to have restricted practices in Wisconsin. The goal also was
to help Wisconsin lawyers gain reciprocal practice rights in other
countries.
In March 1997 the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to a Judicial
Council proposal requiring lawyers who serve as guardians ad litem for
minor children to earn six specialized CLE credits per four-year period,
with a lifetime maximum of 30 credits. The education requirements take
effect in 1999.
Also in March, the court removed a roadblock to more state lawyers
combining their areas of expertise and forming group practices. The
court's so-called "limited liability ruling" on a State Bar petition
filed in October 1995 allows Wisconsin attorneys to form limited
liability organizations. The protection against vicarious liability may
encourage attorneys to form group practices, which can benefit consumers
especially in rural areas.
Looking Ahead
As the fiscal year closed, the State Bar of Wisconsin was engaged in
more public outreach programs than ever before, becoming partners and
developing relationships with high school and law school students,
businesses, social service agencies, legislators, courthouse officials,
legal services groups and many others.
The State Bar also is looking ahead to the 21st century with an eye
on providing more cost-effective and efficient practice tools for
lawyers. Technology will continue to offer lawyers many new ways to
provide legal services to clients, and the Bar is committed to helping
lawyers use those tools.
How will the Bar approach the next century in its commitment to
member services and helping lawyers practice? During the next year,
President Steve Sorenson expects Project
Vision to address that question. This long-range strategic planning
initiative is exploring everything the Bar does, from committee, section
and division work to Bar services and products offered to lawyers.
Wisconsin
Lawyer