Profile: Gerald Mowris
A Time to Take Stock

DID YOU KNOW THAT Wisconsin's teachers are learning how to help their students resolve conflicts through peer mediation, thanks to a joint project of the State Bar of Wisconsin and the state Department of Justice? Or that the Bar, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, provides instruction about the workings of the justice system to teachers, who can then pass along that information to students? Were you aware that volunteers from the Participation of Women in the Bar Committee bring children to visit their mothers in prison to ease the trauma of separation?

Madison attorney Gerald Mowris would wager that many Bar members have never heard of these and many other projects of the Bar and its various committees, sections, and divisions. That's why, as the newly sworn-in State Bar president, he's breaking a tradition of sorts. Unlike most of his predecessors, Mowris is launching no new presidential initiatives during his term. Rather, his emphasis will be on boosting awareness about the Bar's existing programs.

"When these programs are started, often there's a big hullabaloo," Mowris points out, "and then they're forgotten. But these are good programs - in many cases driven by volunteers, both attorneys and Bar staff members. One of the things I want to do is to publicize the availability of these programs out in the communities, so that more people are aware of what the State Bar does. Even lawyers often don't know about these programs."

Building on Past Efforts

Promoting current Bar programs will bring multiple benefits, Mowris believes. Not only do these projects offer help to people in diverse ways, but greater awareness of these programs also will elevate the general public's attitudes about lawyers. Plus, "lawyers will feel better about what they do," Mowris adds, "and about what the State Bar does. I think if more lawyers knew that the Bar works on the peer mediation program, or if they knew that the Bar provides materials to go out to talk to high school students about their rights and responsibilities when they turn 18, then more lawyers would be interested in doing things like that, too. They'd want to participate. We could reinvigorate some of our programs that way."

In a sense, Mowris's mission this year could be described as taking stock of what the Bar is already doing. Taking stock, however, is not to be equated with standing still. Besides publicizing existing programs, Mowris wants to spur self-examination. Which programs are working well? How could they be even better? How can the Bar get more attorneys actively involved?

Beyond that, Mowris wants to build upon certain efforts begun under prior presidential initiatives. The Public Trust and Confidence in the Justice System project, created in 1999 during Leonard Loeb's tenure, was a joint project of the state supreme court, the Bar, and the Wisconsin League of Women Voters, aimed at scrutinizing fairness - and the public's perception of fairness - within the justice system. After weighing input from judges, attorneys, litigants, defendants, clerks of court, jurors, and others, the committee proposed an action plan. "I'm committed to carrying that project to the next stage," Mowris says. "We could try some of the actions outlined in the committee's report and see if those are successful in turning around people's perception of the system."

Looming large on the horizon for the year ahead, and possibly for many years to come, is the Seize the Future project, stemming from a conference convened during immediate Past President Gary Bakke's term. Now that the State Bar Board of Governors has adopted the seven-part Seize the Future Resolution (see www.wisbar.org/bar/stf/stf.html), Bar committees and a special commission will study ways to implement various changes while also preserving the legal profession's core values.

Unlike what attorneys often assume, Seize the Future is about much more than multidisciplinary practice (MDP), Mowris emphasizes. "There are a lot of concepts in Seize the Future that I think we need to examine," he notes, "beyond just MDPs. That one seems to be the lightning rod. But there are other issues, such as figuring out ways to help lawyers unbundle their services so they can provide their services to people at reasonable rates."

While MDP may be the most charged aspect of the Seize the Future concept, Mowris believes lawyers can devise workable solutions that eventually will win broad support. "There are a lot of easy clichés both ways," he says, "that make people pro- or anti-MDPs. I think a better approach is to look at elements of the MDP concept that would be of benefit to lawyers, if we can figure out ways to massage our rules without compromising the ethical concerns. We'll continue to work on that."

"The Bar's function is to help lawyers do their job better, and the Bar president coordinates that effort. That's really what I see as my job." – Gerry Mowris

Making Connections

The Bar's law-related education programs, the Public Trust and Confidence action plan, and the Seize the Future project, might seem, on the surface, to be separate concerns. But in fact these all link together, Mowris points out. As just one example, lawyers' resistance to changing the way they practice - such as clinging to the billable hour rather than unbundling legal services - erodes public trust and confidence. People feel they can't go to a lawyer for help without spending a small fortune. "All of this is interrelated," Mowris notes. "It all relates back to what lawyers do."

Another of Mowris's goals as president is to make more attorneys feel that the Bar is their organization, including some who historically have felt left on the fringes. "Some attorneys don't see the Bar as being pertinent to their lives," he says. "I'd like to get their input to find out what we could do to help them." He's already solicited that kind of information from leaders of the State Bar's Government Lawyers Division, and he'll make similar overtures to other Bar constituents, such as young lawyers, nonresident lawyers, women attorneys, minority bar associations, and local bar groups.

Mowris also is hoping to forge other kinds of connections. The State Bar currently partners with many outside entities to produce quality CLE programs. Mowris wants to expand that kind of partnering. For instance, currently the state Department of Justice runs its own training program for prosecuting attorneys. In the future, the department could partner with the State Bar to present educational seminars that could bring both prosecutors and defense attorneys together. "I think it's healthy to get a view of what it's like to be on the other side," Mowris says. "Both groups can learn from each other."

He's speaking from personal experience, having himself been in both camps during his legal career. He was a Dane County district attorney for six years before switching to private practice criminal defense work 22 years ago. Mowris also served as a defense lawyer in the U.S. Army Judge Advocates General (JAG) Division while he was a district attorney, and while working as a criminal defense attorney in his private life, he was a JAG prosecutor, altogether serving 21 years as a JAG lawyer.

"I know when I was a prosecutor, I learned a lot when I went to national meetings where there were not only other prosecutors, but also defense lawyers," Mowris says. "I think it helps the lawyers and it helps the system for prosecutors and defense lawyers to get together once in a while. We learn that we both have the same goal in mind, which is to make the system work. So I'm a believer in the collaborative approach."

Mowris also has his eye on educational efforts of another sort, in this case aimed at policymakers outside the legal profession whose decisions often affect lawyers. The recent state budget is a case in point. Lack of funding for court interpreters runs counter to the Bar's efforts to enhance public trust and confidence in the justice system. A 5 percent cut in the state public defender's budget has a similar impact, plus it ultimately means higher costs if the public defender's office has to lay off staff attorneys. The counties will end up paying court-appointed private defense attorneys to do what public defenders could have done more efficiently, and thus less expensively. Such decisions are "terrible for the system in the long run," Mowris says. "We need to educate the Legislature and the governor." He'll have a hand in doing so, just as he's done in the past as an active member of the Bar's Criminal Law Section.

Making Time

Sitting at his desk in his Madison lakefront office one May afternoon, his shoes characteristically abandoned to a spot on the floor nearby, Mowris already has a taste of the demands placed on the Bar president, even though he'll not officially take office for several more weeks. "They say the law is a jealous mistress," he jokes, "but it's nothing compared to the State Bar. They want all my time."

Still, he hopes to somehow squeeze in a few days this year on the slopes at Indian Head Mountain in Michigan, where he's served for 25 years as a member of the National Ski Patrol, providing emergency assistance to skiers in trouble. He'll also participate in Madison's Paddle and Portage race again this summer, as he has numerous times in the past. Add to that some hours spent on the golf course and helping out in his wife's garden, plus scheduling in a trip or two to Canada during the upcoming year to go walleye fishing with his family. Mowris and wife Leah Sachtjen, a court reporter, have two children. Danae, 21, is a University of Michigan undergraduate now studying for a year in France, and Jeffrey, 19, recently finished his first year at the U.W.-Madison, where his father also attended college and graduated from law school.

On top of all that, Mowris plans to continue to pour lots of energy into his criminal defense practice, although he knows he'll need to scale back somewhat to fulfill his presidential duties. Staying active in practice is, after all, the best way to stay attuned to the daily rewards and stresses of his colleagues. "The Bar's function is to help lawyers do their job better," he notes. "And the Bar president coordinates that effort. That's really what I see my job to be."

Wisconsin Lawyer