Candidate for President-elect
Dan D. Gartzke
Boardman & Clark, Madison
Email:
dgartzke@boardmanclark.com
Platform Statement
The valuable work of both Past President Dean Dietrich and current State Bar President Ryan Billings has included a focus on promoting civility in our profession and improving access to legal services in Wisconsin’s legally underserved areas. I plan to endorse and continue these platforms. The tool I will use to follow their lead, defined broadly, is improving and expanding State Bar mentorship programs.
Mentorship has been an important part of who I am. I have experienced several mentors in the law throughout my career. Some of them were direct, others simply led by example, but I benefited from all of them.
I have always benefited from the guidance provided me by older lawyers, on both the art and trade of being a lawyer. As I have progressed, I have been able to serve as a lawyer mentor through several programs, as well as informally. There was a State Bar sponsored mentorship program in the 1900s that I participated in, and the Dane County Bar Association started its own program in about 2005. I served three rounds in the Dane County Bar program as a mentor. My firm encourages mentoring young lawyers, both with a formal mentor and also informally.
Not every new lawyer has the support system of a law firm or even access to other experienced lawyers to help them on their way. This is where we as the State Bar can provide programs and assistance to those will most benefit from it.
The State Bar already has several programs, such as the “Ready. Set. Practice” mentoring program. The materials are impressive. It now includes law students, and I understand from State Bar staff that offering it to law students has been a deciding factor for some newly minted lawyers to relocate to Wisconsin.
I have seen that mentorship not only provides the mentee with guidance, but if done properly, the mentor learns from his mentee. I have seen that in my relationships with the young attorneys in our firm, from whom I have learned much.
Thus, I see the benefits of an emphasis on mentorship as severalfold: it will bring lawyers into Wisconsin and provide support so they can stay; it will help keep quality representation in underserved areas of the state as lawyers in those geographic areas can rely on support; and it can improve civility among our profession and ease the stress of being a lawyer.
If elected, I will spend my president-elect year educating myself about the mentorship programs we have, and learning from you what the need and capacity is in your area of the state. While I have experience on both sides of the table, I do not come to the task with preset plans. I will make mentorship a priority tool in improving the pool of lawyers in underserved areas, and in promoting professional civility. In short, because a mentor ethic in our profession not only benefits the lawyer seeking guidance, or the one giving the guidance, it benefits our entire profession by linking us more closely together. That is why my platform will be to promote mentorship programs.
Biography
I am currently a family law attorney with Boardman Clark in Madison, but I have also had a variety of work experiences over the years. I was a solo/small firm practitioner for 16 years, and for eight years, my wife Tracey Schwalbe (also a lawyer – U.W. 1988) and I anchored the New Glarus office of a Monroe firm. My first law job when I graduated from U.W. Law School in 1986 was at Lawton & Cates.
My practice has taken me into courts in 25 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. I have appeared before administrative agencies, circuit courts, and the Court of Appeals, and I have had numerous bench and jury trials. Currently, I handle family law cases, but my practice has also included worker’s compensation, criminal matters, and civil litigation. My practice has been representing individuals, including taking public defender appointments.
I belong to the Dane, Green, and Lafayette County bar associations. I was president of both the Green and Dane County bars. I remain on the History and Memorials Committee for the Dane County Bar; in 2012 we published
Lawyers Who Shaped Dane County. I was in the first class of the James Doyle Inns of Court in Madison, and I am a Life Fellow of the Wisconsin Law Foundation.
I volunteer with the Dane County Bar Association’s Family Law Assistance Clinic, and used that model to start and operate a similar clinic in Green County. I coached my local high school mock trial team for 19 years.
Tracey and I have been married since 1990. We have three adult children who live in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Austin, Texas. We live in rural New Glarus where we raise our small flock of Gotland sheep, restore our prairie, manage our woodlot, and harvest maple sap to make our own syrup.
My law practice has been a source of pride for me. I was not a happy law student, and what got me through law school was when I started as a law clerk at Lawton & Cates in my second year. I had the good fortune to be sitting in in the office library when Dick Cates came in looking for a law clerk to work with him on a large federal case going to trial. I had seen how much being a lawyer meant to my father, but it was only when I was able to sit and watch Dick Cates in the courtroom that I understood why I wanted to be a lawyer. I worked as second chair to other lawyers at the firm, and I carry the lessons learned from each of them and from many other lawyers and judges I have encountered in my 38 years of practice.
Had I been looking forward to my career in 1986, I could not have predicted where I am now – and I never would have anticipated running for State Bar president-elect. But now, looking back, I see how every move I made lead to the next step, and to where I am today, including running for State Bar president. I welcome the opportunity to give back to the profession that has given me so much.
