John Danner Wants to Raise Member Satisfaction, Engagement
 John Danner sees the writing on the wall. With baby boomer retirements going up and law school applicants down, the State Bar’s membership will decline in the coming years. So what does that mean for the State Bar?
“The State Bar must stay strong and unified to address the challenges we face as a profession,” Danner said. “The bar must be an organization that our members want to engage with and participate in, regardless of its status as mandatory or voluntary.”
As president-elect and eventually president, Danner would work to raise member satisfaction and push efforts to engage more members. “There are things we can do to engage our younger attorneys and get the mid-career classes more involved."
“We know from past surveys that there is a degree of dissatisfaction among different segments of the membership,” Danner said. “Some of it may well arise from members who are simply dissatisfied with the practice of law. But for those who are dissatisfied with the State Bar, we need to figure out why. We need to discuss how to change that.”
Danner (Iowa 1979), one of four attorneys at Harrold, Scrobell & Danner S.C. in Minocqua, says he’d like to lead an effort to bring members closer together.
“For example, the Annual Meeting and Conference is a great time for lawyers to learn how their involvement can benefit their own careers and the legal profession. I’d like to attract more members to come to this event, and bring their families,” he said.
An Iowa Man
Danner grew up in Dubuque with two siblings. His father was a newspaper printer and a wrestling coach. Danner wanted to attend the Air Force Academy after high school. But poor eyesight kept him out, and he went on to attend local Loras College.
He majored in speech, minored in chemistry, and participated in forensic speech competitions. Interestingly, he defeated former State Bar President John Walsh (1988-89) in the 1972 Interstate Oratorical Association’s Championship Finals.
This is the same competition that former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Congressman Robert M. LaFollette won in 1879, when he was attending the University of Wisconsin. In short, Danner is a skilled speaker, which has helped him throughout his career in law.
But a legal career, it almost wasn’t. In high school and college, Danner worked in broadcast journalism, and planned to take that career route. After college, he attended graduate school in speech communication at West Virginia University.
He returned to Iowa and was working for WOC-TV, which serves the Quad Cities. He decided to attend law school as a way to develop a niche in broadcast journalism.
“At the time, NBC’s Carl Stern and CBS’s Fred Graham were lawyers working as legal correspondents. I wanted to do that,” Danner said. “I wasn’t going to practice law.”
But then a funny thing happened, as funny things do. While in law school, he ran into Gregory Harrold. The two attended Loras College together. Harrold was practicing law in Milwaukee, but told Danner he just quit his job and was starting anew in Minocqua.
“When I was in broadcasting, I loved to ski,” Danner said. “I would get off work on Saturday nights and drive all night to ski in Wausau. Then drive farther north, through Minocqua, to ski in the UP before driving all night to get back to Iowa for work.”
Danner recalled how beautiful it was in Minocqua. “So Greg asked me to come work up there and see how it goes. I clerked for one of his partners in law school. But in the fall of 1978, my wife and I drove up there to tell them I would not be joining the firm.”
Now, Danner is approaching 37 years as a Minocqua attorney. “It just happened to be a beautiful weekend. I changed my mind. My wife made me promise we would leave if it got lonely. But we never left. It’s a great place to practice law and raise a family.”
In Practice
Danner wanted to be a litigator, but the work wasn’t there. He started doing family law, bankruptcy, and insurance defense work. He also took on legal malpractice cases, and developed a mediation practice, where he uses his communications background.
“I have a very high success rate, in part because I’m able to read the parties and guide the conversation. I studied communication behavior, including the ability to recognize nonverbal cues. This is important, especially for emotionally charged parties.”
During the course of his career, Danner says he has seen dramatic changes in the “business of law,” which has impacted perceptions about law from both lawyer and client perspectives. He hopes lawyers can work toward solutions that address negative perceptions about the legal profession, and help lawyers lead fulfilling careers.
And he knows that change can happen through State Bar involvement. He got involved in State Bar activities in the late 80s, when attorney John Walsh was president.
“I got involved in the rules of collegiality and some other things,” Danner said. “I look back at that time as very productive in terms of what we were able to accomplish.”
While raising a family, Danner participated in his local bar association, and served on various State Bar committees. In 2012, he was elected to the State Bar’s Board of Governors, serving District 16. He was reelected in 2014. He currently serves on the State Bar’s Judicial Election Steering Committee, which is pushing a State Bar proposal to change how state supreme court justices are elected, to a single, 16-year term.
Now he’d like a shot at leading the organization. He says previous leaders have undertaken initiatives to improve the State Bar’s standing among members. He would continue those efforts, and strive to understand the challenges they face.
“The State Bar needs to plan for a future with fewer members, with a business plan that generates more non-dues revenue,” Danner said. “At the same time, we must strive to make the association more vibrant for our membership. That doesn’t happen overnight.”
Fun Fact about John Danner
He officiates high school sports, including basketball, volleyball, and wrestling. He also officiates wrestling at the college level. “I came from a wrestling family. Blowing a whistle is stress relief for me,” Danner said.
Like his father, who was a medic field chef in WWII, Danner also loves to cook. Since the late 1990s, he has served as head cook at an annual community Thanksgiving dinner, free and open to all. This year, the event helped feed 550 people. |
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Paul Swanson Sees Opportunity for Improved Outreach and Service
 Paul Swanson knows what State Bar participation can do for a lawyer’s career. As a young lawyer in the early 1980s, he joined the State Bar’s Young Lawyers Division (YLD) and became the division’s president, which led to other opportunities.
“These activities allowed me to tap into a human inventory of knowledge that was so influential in shaping my career,” Swanson said. “I met some real lions of bankruptcy law. I met older lawyers who I could call for advice when I couldn’t figure it out.”
As president-elect and eventually president, Swanson would work on helping younger attorneys build their networks and continue the State Bar’s efforts to be relevant and impactful for attorneys, such as government lawyers, who may not see the benefits.
“We need to continue the dialogue that allows the State Bar to understand the needs of different sections, divisions, and segments of the membership,” Swanson said. “We also need to help them understand how they can better utilize existing State Bar services.”
Swanson (U.W. 1979), a bankruptcy attorney at Steinhilber, Swanson, Mares, Marone & McDermott in Oshkosh, says his institutional knowledge can help him move the chains.
“I understand the operations of the organization,” Swanson said. “I really believe there are more ways to effectively serve our membership, and I would like to explore those avenues. I’d really like more lawyers to benefit from bar participation the way I did.”
The Doors Open
Born in Milwaukee, Swanson moved around as a kid. His father, a lawyer who worked as an insurance claims manager, followed the work. They finally landed in Oshkosh.
As an undergrad at U.W.-Oshkosh, Swanson started as an English major, but soon realized his aptitude for numbers. He switched to accounting, then went to law school.
At U.W. Law School, he took every tax course, and he was preparing for a career in tax law. When he graduated in 1979, he had an offer from Touche Ross (now Deloitte).
But the job was in Dallas. He called his father in Oshkosh, who by then was in private law practice, working on general insurance defense. Swanson told him about the offer. “After a moment of silence, he said, ‘well, I have an extra office here,’” Swanson explained. “I guess blood is thicker than money. I joined my dad in Oshkosh.”
Despite all of his tax law education, Swanson was just a young lawyer with no experience. “They weren’t lining up for estate planning,” he said. “I started taking public defender appointments and did small personal injury cases, got some trial experience.”
Then one day Swanson’s phone rang. It was a mentor, Russ Reff, who had a bankruptcy referral. Swanson took it through a four-day trial in front of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James Shapiro of the Eastern District, who had just started on the court.
“I was representing the creditor and I lost, but I did a good job,” Swanson said. “Judge Shapiro called me soon after that trial and asked if I wanted to serve as a Chapter 7 trustee. He appointed me to the Chapter 7 panel and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Serving as trustee allowed him to develop a deep understanding of the bankruptcy laws, which were new and developing at the time. In turn, he was able to build a bankruptcy law practice, and relied on the network he was developing through the State Bar.
“I got involved in the Bankruptcy Law Section early on,” Swanson said. “Being around such high caliber attorneys really made a difference in my development in this area.”
Institutional Knowledge
Now a thriving bankruptcy attorney, Swanson continued his involvement in State Bar activities over the years. He was on the Board of Governors from 1987 to 1995, and again from 2008 to 2015, serving as board chair during the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Swanson is currently the State Bar treasurer, an officer position with a seat on the State Bar’s Executive and Finance committees. Over the last three decades, Swanson has served on numerous State Bar committees. Thus, his institutional knowledge is vast.
He says this knowledge, and his participation on the Executive and Finance committees, allows him to be uniquely positioned for the State Bar’s top leadership post.
“I can hit the ground running, so to speak,” Swanson said. “I don’t need time to learn how this organization functions. Often times, it takes new leaders time to get acclimated to the intricacies of bar operations. But I can get right into the work that must be done.”
For instance, Swanson wants to ensure that State Bar sections have adequate support from staff who understand their ongoing needs. “It’s a challenge,” he said. “There’s a lot to be gained from continuity, which allows sections to operate more effectively.”
He’s also concerned about young lawyers. “It’s still rough out there for young lawyers. I want to keep pushing the State Bar’s efforts to help. That includes networking and mentorship opportunities, things that really helped me in my own career.”
Swanson suspects many members, not just young ones, may not know what the State Bar can offer them, or may not understand how their involvement can help them.
“I’m hoping I can figure out a better way to get more members involved. Once they do, I think they will start to see the benefits of being around people with a common bond,” Swanson said. “The future of the legal profession is going to need strong leaders.”
Swanson said he was pleased to see the return of the State Bar’s Annual Meeting and Conference, formerly the State Bar Annual Convention, to bring members together.
“The conference presents a great opportunity for members to connect with each other and discuss what’s going on,” he said. “I’d like to work on getting more people there and explore how we can add value and relevance for the different members we serve.”
Fun Fact about Paul Swanson
Skiing is a family passion. Swanson said his family spends many winter weekends at their place in the Upper Peninsula, and helps organize an annual bankruptcy CLE program in Vail.
“In the summer, there’s nothing better than sailing and biking,” Swanson said. “The country roads around my home town are great for early morning rides, and Lake Winnebago is a sailor’s dream. Being on its waters is a truly rejuvenating experience.” |
