Your New Bar Center
Poised to greet the new millennium in 2001, the State Bar of
Wisconsin now occupies its new home on Madison's northeast side. This
building is a tool to serve members and the public. Welcome
home.
By Dianne Molvig
ith its stately columns and
dome-topped rotunda, the new State Bar Center reminds a visitor of the
county courthouse of yesteryear. While wandering through it, however,
you quickly recognize that this is a building equipped for tomorrow.
Tucked into various corners are the "data closets," which house the
linkages for the technology infrastructure threaded inside the walls and
above the ceilings throughout the entire building. Not far from the main
entrance is the technology center, a room outfitted with 12 computer
work stations for hands-on computer training for Bar members. Plus,
every conference room has convenient, accessible power outlets that
allow easy hookup of computers, laptops, and other equipment during
meetings and seminars.
It's a long way from the Bar's old headquarters at 402 W. Wilson St.
in downtown Madison in more ways than one. Greater day-to-day
operating efficiency, new technological capabilities, and improved
accessibility are just some of the benefits the new center brings to
both Bar members and staff.
How we got here
The West Wilson Street center, built by the State
Bar of Wisconsin in 1958, was the first permanent home the Bar could
call its own. For the 10 years preceding the move to West Wilson, the
organization had rented a small three-office suite a few blocks away on
West Washington Avenue. From 1920 to 1948, the Bar headquarters was in
the state law librarian's office, and before that, from the Bar's
founding in 1878, its quarters were transient, housed in the office of
whoever was serving as the association's secretary.
In 1958 the Bar had fewer than 7,000 members, compared to 19,991
today. As the organization grew, so did its West Wilson Street
headquarters, with the addition of a second floor in 1969 and another
addition in 1981. After that, expanding up or out any further was
impossible due to structural limitations and the surrounding residential
neighborhood. Over the years, what used to be conference rooms were
confiscated for badly needed office space, existing office spaces were
subdivided to squeeze in more Bar employees, and storage, mailing, and
printing operations were moved offsite.
The indoor space crunch wasn't the only problem. Parking was a
headache, as any Bar member knew who tried to find a parking spot during
business hours. Plus, in a building constructed in the age of
typewriters, retrofitting for modern technology became increasingly
difficult and costly.
"The limitations were the driving force" behind the move to new
headquarters, says Madison attorney Howard Goldberg, a long-time member
of the State Bar's Facilities Committee. Initially, Goldberg was one of
those advocating a move to another downtown Madison location. "Believe
me, I can't tell you how many places we looked at," he says. "The
buildings we could have purchased would have taken extensive remodeling,
and they would not be what we have now. They also would have cost us
much more" than the $4.95 million price tag of the new center (including
land, construction, the technology infrastructure, and furnishings).
Out-of-town Bar members will find the new location more convenient,
adds Goldberg. "People from the Fox River Valley say this will cut a
half-hour off their trip each way," Goldberg notes. "That's definitely a
factor." Bar members and visitors coming in from all parts of the state
or out of state will have easy access to the new facility, located in
the American Center Office Park on Madison's northeast side, near
Highway 151 and Interstate 90/94. In addition, Madison Metro soon will
provide bus service to the office park.
All in one
More Bar members now may have reason and opportunity to visit the new
40,000-square-foot Bar Center. Parking is no longer a problem. The
handicapped accessible building abounds with space for meetings,
seminars, social events, and even for members to stop in to work for a
couple hours while in town on other business. All these uses had become
difficult, even impossible, during recent years at the West Wilson
Street building due to lack of space.
"You could seldom have a meeting of just eight people at the old Bar
office," notes Stevens Point attorney Gerry O'Brien, chair of the State
Bar Facilities Committee. "There was great competition for the little
room available. So in recent years I've been to lots of Bar meetings at
area restaurants and hotels." Not only was this costly for the Bar and
inconvenient for members, O'Brien says, it also was an inefficient use
of staff "who had to drag meeting support materials to offsite
locations."
Being able to hold the vast majority of seminars and meetings in the
new center except for those intentionally held in other locations
in the state translates into improved staff efficiency. Further
boosting efficiency is the fact that some Bar operations
printing, mailing, and storage that had been relocated to offsite
rented locations because of space shortages, now are back in-house. The
new center "brings it all together in one place," notes Susan Steingass,
State Bar past president. "That's more cost-effective. That's efficient.
And that's symbolic."
The lower level of the new building, designed with plenty of
above-ground windows to let in daylight, houses the finance department,
order fulfillment, the mailing and printing operations, warehouse space
for various research materials and Bar publications and products, and
staff kitchen.
All of the public areas are easily accessible from the rotunda, the
building's most striking feature. The main level of the rotunda hosts
the reception area and a CLE registration desk convenient to the seminar
rooms. Telephones, coatrooms, display cases of State Bar products, water
fountains, restrooms, and a catering kitchen are nearby.
On the main floor, the north wing is made up of three large
conference rooms the Wingra, Mendota, and Monona. A stationary
projector and overhead screen in one room allow for video replays,
making this another site in addition to 10 around the state
for viewing CLE seminars. The same equipment could someday be
used for video conferencing and computer displays. Soundproof, movable
partitions between the three areas can be slid into storage closets to
create one large assembly hall, accommodating 152 people when set up
with tables and chairs in a classroom configuration, and up to 250
occupants for a theater seating arrangement. Next to the assembly hall
is the technology center. In the south wing off the central rotunda, are
the member relations and public services and administration departments,
including a conference room for meetings of up to 10 people.
The central curved staircase in the rotunda takes you to the upper
galleria level. Flanking the galleria on the east and west sides are a
Board Room and two conference rooms, with capacities of from six to 16
occupants. The computer services, member records, periodical and
consumer publications, and marketing departments occupy the south wing.
On the north side are the CLE seminars and books, and public affairs
departments. Staff work-areas on all three levels combine 16 closed
offices with open space divided into 78 modular workstations, to allow
for easy future modifications.
Above the staircase in the central rotunda is the translucent 26-foot
dome, through which streams in abundant natural daylight, reducing the
need for artificial lighting. A "Daylighting in the Workplace" grant
from the state helped pay the architect fees. The rotunda's handsome
details welcome members to a sophisticated, functional, and
forward-looking building and organization.
New capabilities
Wound throughout the building is the computer network that is
"anywhere from 10 to 100 times faster than virtually any other computer
network in Dane County in the private and public sectors, save for the
university," says Green Bay attorney Mark Pennow, chair of the State
Bar's Electronic Bar Services Committee. "Folks wonder why things always
have to go faster. The answer is that the demands being made on the
technology infrastructure these days are escalating geometrically."
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The rotunda's design, featuring a 26-foot dome, emotes
openess and light and yet history and substance. The faux obsidian State
Bar seal inlay enhances the reception area.
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For instance, while Internet transmissions once were slow, containing
only an occasional picture and mostly text, development of new Internet
technologies and subtechnologies, such as audio and video, has boosted
the demand for speed. "Everybody wins with a faster network" in the new
facility, Pennow explains. "We're able to do a lot in terms of remote
learning and dissemination of information. Lawyers benefit because they
can get information that would not have been available to them before,
and certainly not available in this convenient electronic format."
"There may be reasons why the State Bar may or may not decide to
implement various technologies in the future," Pennow adds. "But one
thing seems reasonably sure: The network that runs through the walls and
ceilings of this building will not be that reason. We're eliminating the
technical bottleneck as far as we're able."
As Internet technology advances, State Bar Distance Education
Coordinator Steve Rindo envisions offering CLE seminars on a delayed or
live basis over the Internet. Not only will that make CLE easily
attainable to members anywhere in the state, even around the world, but
the Bar Center's technological infrastructure will aid in the effort.
"Online distance learning is an important trend in the continuing legal
education industry," Rindo says. "The new Bar Center's added meeting
space, coupled with our ability to internally transmit live speaker
presentations to the Internet, offers the Bar a competitive edge in
providing our members the opportunity to attend seminars without
geographic concerns."
Thus, the new facility will serve as a hub for CLE and other
information dissemination, says Cheryl Daniels, a State Bar Facilities
Committee member and administrative law judge for the state Department
of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. That's an important
feature, Daniels notes, for her fellow government lawyers who are in
far-flung locations.
"We have the potential to develop more CLE for government lawyers,"
she says, "and we can reach out to our entire membership. Whether you're
a government attorney in Madison, or in Oneida County, or a Wisconsin
lawyer who works in Washington, D.C., you'll be able to see the programs
through the new technology we have."
Internet-based technology is only part of the picture, Rindo
emphasizes. The infrastructure is in place to someday provide video
conferencing technology in all conference rooms, allowing two-way video
and audio communications. This will be used to connect people during
meetings. "We're not planning to use it in education not yet at
least," Rindo says. "But the hard wiring is in place" for that purpose
in the future.
Yet another important technological component is the technology
center, with its 12 work stations, where Bar members with computer
skills ranging from novice to advanced can obtain hands-on computer
training. Next door in the assembly hall, the stationary projector and
screen used for video replays also can present computer displays,
offering additional computer training space if needed. Another future
function of the technology center is to serve as a site for pilot tests
of new CLE and law office technologies, including hardware and software.
Evaluators members and staff will be able to try out new
systems, right in the lab, and give immediate feedback. "So not only can
we use the lab to teach lawyers about computers," Pennow points out,
"but we can use it to test out new ideas for learning tools that we
haven't even conceived of yet."
Dianne Molvig operates Access
Information Service, a Madison research, writing, and editing service.
She is a frequent contributor to area publications.
Wisconsin
Lawyer
