President's Report
1996-97 Financial Statement

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