Speedy Trial

This feature introduces a member of Dane County's legal community as they answer five questions posed to them by DCLRCBlawg. If you would like to participate, please email Paula Seeger for more information.

Meet Attorney Charles V. ("Buck") Sweeney from AXLEY BRYNELSON, LLP

1. What's the favorite part of your job?

• Helping people to solve problems.

2. What's the greatest challenge facing Dane Co. courts or legal professionals today?

• Having patience to listen to some of the issues, and using common sense to address the problems between individuals with very diverse views of reality.
  

3. What's the one thing that has changed the most since you took your job?

• Technology has required lawyers to be available 24 hours a day and respond to E-mails on computers and the Blackberry.

4. You would describe your legal research style as:
A: Legal Research...what's that?
B: Thank Goodness for staff attorneys and office staff!
C: Mostly at home, mostly as needed
D: All research, all the time.

5. What three pieces of advice would you give to someone new to your line of work?

• Be willing to listen to your client’s needs and be responsive.
• Answer phone calls and respond to people to give them the impression that they are the most important client to you.
• Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know, but will find out”.

Legal Research Tip 18: A Subpoena Primer

Welcome to the next issue of the DCLRC E-Newsletter "Legal Research Tips"! You can view back issues of these tips through other posts in this blawg. Enjoy!

Brief definitions of the terms:
subpoena - A document issued by the court to compel a witness to appear and give testimony or to procure documentary evidence in a proceeding. From ABA

subpoena duces tecum - A process by which the court commands a witness to produce certain documents or records in a trial. From ABA

request to produce documents - When one party wants an opposing party to produce documents, usually before a trial.

subpena - The modern spelling of subpoena. A subpena is a court order issued at the request of a party requiring a witness to appear in court. From Nolo

Where are the forms?
A subpoena and cerificate of service is a mandatory form for use in the Circuit Courts of Wisconsin and can be found on the Courts System's forms web page.

Requests to produce and subpoenas duces tecum are not online, but are available in the Wisconsin Civil Litigation Forms Manual as sample forms. That books is available in law libraries.

In addition, Dane Co Circuit Court Rule 114 requires this ADA Notice to be included on all notices, warrants, and subpoenas: "If you need help in this matter because of a disability, call (608) 266-4311 or TDD (608) 266-4625 and ask for the court ADA coordinator."

What's the law?
Subpoenas are covered extensively in statute 885: Witnesses and Oral Testimony and section 805.07: Civil Procedure--Trials. In addition, there are other statutes regarding subpoenas for specific documents or with specific agencies. Complete a search for the word "subpoena" in the statutes and you'll see several chapters with more specific information.

For more information see How to Represent Yourself FAQ.

Internet Tip 18

Welcome to the next issue of "Internet Tips"! There are three sections to this email: a beginner's tip, an advanced tip, and a useful internet link. Enjoy!

Beginner's Tip: Clear Documents from your Start Menu
As you know, Windows adds a short cut to the recently used documents in the "Start-- Documents" menu. If you wanted to get rid of all the short cuts to most recently used documents all you have to do is:
Right Click on the Task Bar and click on "Properties"

Select "Advanced" (or "Start Menu Programs") tab and click on "Clear" ("Documents Menu").

This tip comes with an advanced portion that you are welcome to read here.

Advanced Tip: Learning HTML
Click here for an introduction and FAQ on learning HTML.

Useful Internet Link: Learn how blogs work! Comes with easy to understand explanatin of common blogging terms.

Speedy Trial

This feature introduces a member of Dane County's legal community as they answer five questions posed to them by DCLRCBlawg. If you would like to participate, please email Paula Seeger for more information.

Meet Chris Malloy, local legal professional

1. What's the favorite part of your job?

• Seeing justice done.

2. What's the greatest challenge facing Dane Co. courts or legal professionals today?

• Lack of resources/funding

3. What's the one thing that has changed the most since you took your job?

• Volume of cases

4. You would describe your legal research style as:
A: Legal Research...what's that?
B: Thank Goodness for staff attorneys and office staff!
C: Mostly at home, mostly as needed
D: All research, all the time.

5. What three pieces of advice would you give to someone new to your line of work?

• Be flexible!

New Resource: Burning Ears

A new blog called "Burning Ears" has been created to track local news reports about law libraries and librarians across the US. If you have a local news story you'd like to share, please email me with the details. If it is available free online, a link will be provided, otherwise just a cite and description.

New Resource: Progress in the States

From the Center for Policy Alternatives comes this 16-page report of progressive legislative action in states on topics such as voting reform, business and labor, and civil rights and liberties. Read more...

Speedy Trial

This feature introduces a member of Dane County's legal community as they answer five questions posed to them by DCLRCBlawg. If you would like to participate, please email Paula Seeger for more information.

Meet Allyn Lepeska, Office of Legal Counsel Wisconsin Dept of Transportation

1. What's the favorite part of your job?

• Winning

2. What's the greatest challenge facing Dane Co. courts or legal professionals today?

• Providing service at reasonable fees but generating enough income to pay professionals.

3. What's the one thing that has changed the most since you took your job?

• The availability of information.

4. You would describe your legal research style as:

• If it is not on the web, no one will find it.
  

5. What three pieces of advice would you give to someone new to your line of work?

• Stay ethical, work hard but remember there is more to life than work.

Resource: WI Judicial District OWI Sentencing Guidelines

Many people know that the state has sentencing guidelines for those convicted of certain crimes, but the judicial districts around the state create their own OWI guidelines. You can view these guidelines on the State Bar website.

From the website: "Under Wis. Stat. 346.65(2m), each judicial administrative district is required to adopt guidelines for judges to follow in sentencing for operating while intoxicated. The constitutionality of the guidelines was upheld in State v. Jorgensen, 2003 WI 105; 264 Wis. 2d 157; 667 N.W.2d 318."

How to Direct Complaints

Recently, someone posted a complaint about how the courthouse has too few hours of staffed weapon screening. However, the person didn't suggest what could be done to adequately get his concerns heard by someone who could make changes. DCLRC staff receive several requests a week for who to complain about various legal or court personnel. Here's a guide to directing complaints and concerns about legal and court-related functions:

Complaints about judges: The Wisconsin Judicial Commission investigates allegations of judicial misconduct. They provide an online complaint form.

Complaints about lawyers: The Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) investigates grievances about attorney misconduct or medical incapacity. OLR provides instructions on how to file a grievance, outlines the grievance process, and explains under what circumstances you may learn whether other grievances have been filed or whether the attorney has been previously disciplined. For more information visit the for attorneys section of the site. If your complaint deals with malpractice rather than misconduct, you may wish to consult a different attorney to pursue the matter.

Complaints about court commissioners: Read Supreme Court Rule (SCR) 75.06. Contact the chief judge. In Dane County, that's Judge M. Nowakowski. Or contact the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. They provide an online complaint form.

Complaints about court staff: Contact the Clerk of Courts office and talk to a court manager.

Complaints about weapon screening, security, or other courthouse functions: If it is a complaint about staff, contact the Facilities Management department. They supervise most courthouse physical building functions, such as weapon screening, heat, lights, or sidewalk entrances.

If it's a complaint about the hours of weapon screening, which is a hot budget issue every year, you should contact your county board supervisor or a member of the Public Protection and Judiciary committee of the County Board. You can find your supervisor on the Board's home page, or call 266-5758.

Stump the Law Librarian

Q: How do I complete historical research on local laws and cases? For example, tracking how a local ordinance has changed.

A: Many county and city ordinances have history notes that are a good place to start. For example, Madison General Ordinance 32.01 regarding the statement of the purpose of the landlord/tenant ordinance has a note directly following its text that reads:
(Cr. by Ord. 6098, 1-6-78) That notation means that the section was created by ordinance 6098 on January 6, 1978. That corresponds to a book in the City Clerk's office that contains the past changes. The city attorney's office also keeps old ordinances.

For Dane County ordinances, it's a little trickier. If there is no history note, it will be difficult to track changes because the county clerk's office does not keep any old ordinances. A person would most likely need to track the law back through the county board proceedings.

Finding older circuit court cases can be difficult without complete case information, such as a case number or party names. Supreme Court Rule 72 regulates how long circuit court records must be retained by the courts. If you cannot access a case file directly through the court, here are some other options that you might try:

1. Was the case appealed? If so, there's a good chance that the circuit court decision is included in an appendix to the briefs on appeal. The State Law Library has a large number of briefs in print and the UW Law Library has made several years worth available online.

2. You can check the collection of the WI Historical Society for local records and cases.

3. Looking for a Dane County court decision? Check the index of cases donated to DCLRC from the circuit court judges.

For more information on finding court documents, see a recent Wisblawg post on the topic.