Vol. 70, No. 3, March
1997
E. Harold Hallows
In a March 1994 article in this series, Moses M. Strong (1810-1894) was
profiled as the archetypal 19th century Wisconsin lawyer. Strong was a politician
and entrepreneur as well as a lawyer, and played important roles in founding
Wisconsin, its legal culture and the State Bar. Because the 20th century
bar is so much larger and more diverse, it is more difficult to identify
an archetypal 20th century Wisconsin lawyer. Chief Justice E. Harold Hallows
of the Wisconsin Supreme Court comes as close as anyone.
Hallows was born in Fond du Lac in 1904. He went to college at Marquette
University and received his law degree from the University of Chicago in
1930. After graduation, Hallows rapidly rose to prominence in the bar: He
established a successful career in private practice in Milwaukee, taught
law for many years at Marquette and became a leader of the State Bar.
When the Judicial Council was formed in 1951, Hallows was appointed
one of its first members. He became one of the most forceful advocates of
reorganization of Wisconsin's court system. When Hallows was elected president
of the State Bar in 1953-54 he made reorganization a top priority and was
instrumental in increasing support for court reform among the bar.
In 1958 Hallows was appointed to the supreme court; he became chief
justice in 1968 and served until shortly before his death in 1974. When
Hallows joined the court, a tort reform movement advocating the elimination
of many common-law immunities and the liberalization of recovery rules was
reaching its peak in Wisconsin and many other states. Hallows gained a reputation
as a leading supporter of this movement and an authority on tort reform.
Hallows also was the author of one of the court's first important environmental
law decisions, Just v. Marinette County (1972), in which the court upheld
the state's authority to regulate a landowner's rights to alter or modify
ecologically fragile property. |