Inside the Bar
March 2008
Judges Fleishauer and Nettesheim receive Judge of
the Year and Lifetime Jurist Achievement awards
Portage County Circuit Court Judge Frederic W. Fleishauer will
receive
the 2007 Judge of the Year Award. Retired Appellate Court Judge
Neal P. Nettesheim will
receive the 2007 Lifetime Jurist Achievement Award. The Bench and Bar
Committee will present both awards on May 8 at the Annual Convention in
Madison.
Frederic W. Fleishauer
Neal P. Nettesheim
The Judge of the Year
Award honors an outstanding circuit court
trial judge who has exceeded the call of judicial office and who has
improved the judicial system in the past year.
Fleishauer, who has served on the bench since 1981, is
praised by his peers as a model of integrity, patience, and respect in
all of his contacts with attorneys, county personnel, and persons
appearing in his courtroom.
Katherine Munck, executive director of Justiceworks Ltd., in
Portage County, which promotes the principles of restorative justice,
notes that Fleishauer has “expended an enormous amount of
personal
time and effort in forwarding initiatives to improve the justice
system
and to involve the community in that endeavor.” She stresses his
contributions to working collaboratively with stakeholders in Stevens
Point and throughout Portage County to build community awareness of
the
justice system and to promote restorative justice.
Fleishauer was instrumental in bringing new
technologies into the courts to improve services.
The Lifetime Jurist
Achievement Award recognizes a jurist who has
served more than one full term as a circuit court judge and who has
demonstrated outstanding, long-term judicial service during his or her
years as a sitting judge.
Nettesheim, Wisconsin’s second-longest sitting
judge at the time of his retirement last year, was in private practice
from 1966 to 1975, when he became a Waukesha County judge. He served as
a Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge from 1978 to 1983, when he joined
District II of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. He served as chief judge
from 1990 to 1993. William J. Domina, Milwaukee County corporation
counsel, praised Nettesheim as a jurist who defended both “the
rule of law and the rule of common sense” and as the embodiment of
“fairness, scholarship, and excellent judicial
temperament.”
Nettesheim served on the state’s Judicial Education
Committee, which oversees continuing education programs for judges, and
was dean of the Wisconsin Judicial College, which provides orientation
and training for newly elected or appointed judges and a refresher for
sitting judges, from 1987 to 1993. Nettesheim also has served on the
Mentor Council and the Bench Bar
Committee.
Admission is $30 per person, and this event is not
included in any convention package. Only a small number of tickets will
be available for sale at the luncheon.
Inside the
Bar