Award recipients announced; Bar honors members at Annual
Convention
May 2, 2003
President Pat Ballman will recognize three individuals who have
served with distinction during her term of office at the Members'
Recognition Luncheon in Milwaukee on May 9. Milwaukee's James M.
Brennan, Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee and Mary
Triggiano, Legal Action of Wisconsin, and Joseph Ranney
III, DeWitt Ross & Stevens, Madison will receive the
President's Award. Justice William Bablitch, Wisconsin
Supreme Court, and J. Denis Moran, Director of State
Courts, both of whom will retire this year, will receive a Special
Recognition Award. The awards will be presented at the State Bar Annual
Convention at the Midwest Airlines Center.
Representing District 2, Jim Brennan served on the Board of
Governors for the first time in 1997 and was tapped by Past President
Gary Bakke in 2000 to serve as Chair of the Board. He also served on the
Executive Committee. Brennan helped develop and launch the Building
Bridges Program, a partnership initiative with the state's minority bar
associations. Reelected last month to represent District 2, Brennan is
now back "on Board" again.
Brennan and President Ballman share the common goal of promoting
diversity within the State Bar and the legal profession. Through his
membership and liaison duties with the Diversity Outreach Committee,
Brennan routinely is involved with proactive projects that foster and
encourage diversity. By volunteering to interview first-year law student
applicants he helps ensure the continued success of the State Bar's
Minority Clerkship Program.
Mary Triggiano's pragmatism and determination have served the
State Bar and its members well for many years. Triggiano is a member of
the Board of Governors, representing District 2 and was recently elected
to the Board's Executive Committee. She has been an active and prominent
member of the Commission on Delivery of Legal Services, the Commission
on Violence and the Justice System, and the Alternative Dispute
Resolution Section Board. Triggiano serves on the Gender Equity
Committee and the Paralegal Task Force and has a long-standing
commitment to access to justice and delivery of legal services to the
indigent. Triggiano has been a driving force on the Legal Assistance
Committee since 1994, currently serves as committee vice chair, and will
chair the committee next year.
This year, Triggiano made the initial push for a new pro bono project
- an organized, grassroots volunteer effort involving the State Bar,
local bar associations, and the judiciary.
Madison attorney and legal historian Joseph (Jay) A. Ranney
is a member of the Wisconsin Legal History Committee, co-chaired by
Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson and State Bar President Pat Ballman,
appointed to commemorate the Wisconsin Supreme Court's 150th and the
State Bar of Wisconsin's 125th anniversaries in 2003. As part of the
committee's work, in 2002 Ranney initiated a series of biographies of
prominent Wisconsin Supreme Court justices to be published through 2003
in Wisconsin Lawyer. From 1992 to 1995, Ranney wrote several
articles for a Wisconsin Lawyer series that looked at important
social and legal issues, cases, and personalities that helped shape
Wisconsin's legal system. He received the 1992 State Bar Communications
Committee's Charles Dunn Author Award for one of the articles. Ranney
wrote the first comprehensive history of any American state's legal
system - Trusting Nothing to Providence: A History of Wisconsin's
Legal System, published in 1999 by the U.W. Law School, Continuing
Education and Outreach. Ranney's prolific body of work captures and
preserves the facts and flavor of Wisconsin's rich past, and encourages
the study of legal history generally.
Justice William Bablitch, Wisconsin Supreme Court has served
the public for 36 years. His service began as an elementary school
teacher in the Peace Corps in Liberia, West Africa, in 1963 and
concludes after serving as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice for 20
years. As district attorney in Portage County for four years (1969 -
72), he helped set up one of the first sensitive crimes units in the
state designed to assist sexual assault victims through the criminal
justice system.
As a state senator for 11 years (1973-83), seven of which he served
as majority leader, he authored the first campaign reform law placing
restrictions on campaign spending and establishing public financing. In
addition, he authored the sexual assault legislation which became model
legislation across the country, and authored landmark legislation on
child abuse. As a justice for 20 years, Bablitch wrote many opinions
supporting Wisconsin's environment, open government, consumer
protection, and victim's rights.
J. Denis Moran, Director of State Courts, will retire May 31
after more than 24 years of service to the Wisconsin court system. Moran
has been the administrative head of the Wisconsin court system since
October 1978. He was the first person to serve as the director of the
reorganized court system. During Moran's tenure, the state's court
system has been involved in numerous initiatives that jurisdictions
around the nation and the world are replicating. The National
Association for Court Management honored Moran in 2002 with its Award of
Merit, given for "leadership and excellence in the advancement of the
ideals and principles of modern judicial management and professional
court management."
Other awards and recognitions. Also at the Members'
Recognition luncheon, Wisconsin Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson will
recognize the men
and women admitted to practice in 1953 for their half-century as
members of the State Bar.
The State Bar's Bench/Bar Committee will present the 2002 Lifetime
Jurist Achievement Award to Judge Patrick L.
Snyder, Branch 4 Waukesha County. Judge Gerald C.
Nichol, Dane County Circuit Court, will receive the Judge
of the Year Award.
Preregistration to attend the Members' Recognition Luncheon is
required and is not included in any convention package.
