INTERVIEW OF MILO FLATEN

By Attorney Joan L. Eads (and recorded on VCR tape on March 1, 1993):

Q.          How did you become interested in the law?

A:          My grandfather was a lawyer on my mother's side, in fact he was a judge, and my father was a lawyer, so I just assumed everyone in my family would be a lawyer.

Q:          You had grown up assuming that you would be a lawyer?

A:          Yes, I just assumed I would be because everybody in my family was. But then, in wartime, when I graduated from high school, I went into the Army the next day.  I had been registered for the draft in May 1943 and I graduated in June. They gave me a deferment for a month so I could finish my high school education. Then I went to the Army. After I got out of the army the baseball coach at the UW asked me to play baseball here in Madison. I was from Minneapolis and I came down here and played baseball. After I finished baseball, I decided to go to Law School.

Q:          Did you go to law school here in Wisconsin?

A:          Yes, I also joined the ROTC after I got out of the Army in World War Il. I was an enlisted man in WWII and had a horrible experience. I was in infantry mortal combat for so long and I'd been wounded eight times and had even been taken prisoner, but I escaped after a few days and it was just a terrible time. So, when I came to school here in Madison, I was determined to have a good time.

Q:          Were you in a European Theatre of Operations in WWII?

A:          Yes, I was in the European Theatre. After I got to the University, I joined the ROTC and got a commission as a second lieutenant in the Infantry and then later in the Korean War they called me up again.  I went overseas again, and got wounded another time but this time I was an officer. I thought as long as I'd spent all that time in the Army, I stayed in the Army Reserve and am still there. I was finally assigned to the Selective Service System Reserves because I'm a lawyer I suppose. I always determined that if I ever left the Infantry I'd go all the way to the rear. I can't think of anything farther to the rear than the draft. My mobilization designation's destination is at 1725 F Street in Washington, D.C. If ever there is a war, I'm designated to be Deputy Director of the Selective Service. But that doesn't have anything to do with practicing law though.

I went to Law School and graduated and got married while I was in school. My wife was working for the UW Extension, and after I graduated in January, her job was to run these Summer Music Clinics that they had for high school kids. Band, orchestra, choir, etc. — all throughout the summer. She was the person that ran the administrative part of that thing. (Now, that job is run by fifty or sixty people). Her boss said, "your husband's going to graduate so you can either stay with me until the end of summer or quit now because I have to train someone to take your place." She came home and told me that and I said, "At least you have a job, that's more than I do." So, I decided I'd stay in Madison. I graduated February, the 13th, in 1952. The other grads and I went over to the Capitol, which in those days still had direct electric current so the Capitol lights were real dim. They had a card table set up and they passed out our degrees after we were sworn in by the Supreme Court. We were actually sworn in before we were handed our law degree.

Because my wife had a job, I said I'd look for one in Madison and I went to the classified phone book and looked under "Lawyers", because I'd gone to Law School. Attorney Bill Aberg was the first lawyer listed in the phone book. I called him up and said, "Can I have a job?" He replied that the firm did need someone to fill in for a while. They wanted somebody to do investigation work and help Ed Conrad and Carroll Metzner who were the firm's trial lawyers. They said they'd take me until my wife's job had ended at the completion of summer school. I was working at the library table and was a jack-of-all trades. My first job was to go over and get Attorney George Blake's wife's umbrella at Manchester's tearoom. (I thought, I went to law school for three years in order to be trained to do that?) Anyway, at the end of the summer of 1952 1 had to go to the Army Reserve summer camp because I was in the Army Reserve.

I came back after my two weeks reserve training up at Camp McCoy in 1952. On my return they asked where I had been (the library table had piled high with work for me to do) and I told them I'd had Army summer camp and I just came back to pick up my last check from my temporary job. The partners in the firm said "just a minute" and had a hurried conference. When they came back, they started extolling about how nice Madison was with its parks and schools and so forth and offered me a permanent job. I stayed with them as a Trial Attorney for fifteen or sixteen years. I tried cases all over the state, every place Carroll Metzner didn't want to try a case. In those days the insurance companies only used one law firm in each entire state, who would try their cases all over the state. Most were automobile accident cases. We represented American Family, which was then called Farmer's Mutual, and All-State, which is probably the largest insurance company in the world and also represented St. Paul Fire and Marine and several other very large automobile insurance companies. I think I tried a case in every county in the State of Wisconsin except Buffalo County. Some of those counties were quite rustic and didn't have rebuilt and modernized courthouses as they have now. I heard all of the courthouses now have been rebuilt except maybe Iowa County or Grant County.

I can remember trying a case up in Shell Lake in Rusk County. They had a fireplace in the Circuit courtroom that was used as the central heating for the whole building. The Clerk of Court's office was right opposite the jury box, so I'd be up making a dramatic presentation to the jury, and some guy would come through with his overshoes unbuttoned and he'd greet a juror in the jury box. He'd say hello to them on his way to pick up his relief check in the Clerk of Court's office and you had to go through the Circuit Courtroom to get there.

That was an interesting case by the way. Up at Shell Lake our firm represented the Northwest Telephone Company against the Madison law firm which was then called Shubring, Ryan, Peterson and Sutherland and is now Axley, Byrnelson. They represented the General Telephone Company. The two telephone company lines crossed at a common pole. For support of the common pole, they had a cable tied the pole in the ditch on the other side of the road. The support cable went across the road and to a full-sized pole called a "stub" pole to hold that telephone pole steady. Somehow one of the two connecting poles got knocked loose and the cable was drooping over the road. A brand-new Chris Craft Cruiser came through on its way up from Minnetonka, to Bayfield. It had a polished teak wood cabin, mahogany deck and glamorous appurtenances. When it went under that drooping cable, it scraped across the top of the superstructure and ruined the cabin. It did $25-30,000 damage to the boat. The lawsuit was over whose fault it was — General Telephone Co. or Northwest Telephone Co. The first day of the trial there weren't enough people in the courtroom present from which to pick a jury. The reason they didn't have enough was because instead of appearing for jury duty they went to another hearing in Spooner, which was a town about three miles away, where the Public Service Commission was conducting hearings on the inadequate telephone service of my client the Northwest Telephone Company. Everybody in that neck of the words was mad as hell at my client (they still had crank up phones) and was disgusted because my client hadn't modernized it. Needless to say, I settled that case before another day went by. My client would have been murdered by that jury.

That was what I did, when I got out of Law School; I tried jury trials. I tried lawsuits of every imaginable kind so I had my own system. Sometimes I tried two or even three jury trials in one week. As I would drive down the road to the place of the trial, I had a notebook and jury instructions, (they didn't have canned jury instructions in those days), and I would open my notebook to a situation: "Intersection, my car on the right" so I'd know the prepared jury instruction that said, "When two or more vehicles enter an intersection at the same time, the car on the left should yield to the car on the right" and so forth. It was kind of a pick-me-up thing but I guess I was doing all right because my firm continued to use me and praise my ability. I was appointed to the first committee that wrote permanent jury instructions.

Then, one night, I woke up in the middle of my sleep and decided I no longer wanted to wake up in a cold sweat about whether a jury of farmers would decide whether my client was two inches over the center line or not. So, I quit and called all of my insurance company clients and told them I was through trying cases and quit the firm

After that I went in with Attorneys Bud Huiskamp and Tony Brewster in a partnership arrangement. We started out in the old First Wisconsin National Bank, which was where the Firstar National Bank is today. Our office was up on the ninth floor. Later we moved over and were the first tenants of the Guardian Life Company building, over where their building exists now on Gilman Street. We were there on the second floor next to Ronald Mattox, which was an accounting firm in town. They have since changed their name and have become a national firm (Grant, Thornton).

Q:          What kind of law did you practice then?

A:          Well, I did lots of business stuff. I was mostly in real estate and probate. I represented CUNA Credit Union down on Atwood Avenue. They had an awful lot of business in mortgage loans and I did a lot of real estate work for them. I still tried a case now and then. I remember I had a case where I represented Dane County, or the insurance company that insured Dane County. I represented a guy who was performing at the Sportsman Show at the Dane County Coliseum. He was a lumberjack and in his act he'd swing from the ceiling on ropes. As he was swinging down, somehow his pants got caught on the hook and the pants loosened and fell down to his ankles as he swung. The belt buckle hit a fishing tackle demonstrator who was on the Coliseum floor in the eye and put out his eye. We had a lawsuit involving that. (That was when I was trying to cut back on my trial work).

After that, I left Husikamp and Brewster and I shared an office with Attorney Buzz Nichols, who is now a Circuit judge, and Attorney Mike Wyngard for a couple of years. Then my wife got sick. She got sick with cancer and they said she had only had a short time to live, so I quit work. Fortunately, I had saved some money and I quit work and stayed home to take care of her. I was with her 24 hours a day caring for her until she died.

Needless to say, when I came back to the practice of law, all my clients had left so I had to start over again. That is when I became a Labor Arbitrator which I am today.

I had been doing some labor arbitration work when I was on the Madison City Council. I was on the City Council for five years. I was the Chairman of the Bargaining Committee, which meant that I had to do the labor negotiations with the thirteen labor unions working for the city. (Now, they're replaced me with a Personnel Director and a staff of maybe 75 people). Later, after I left the Common Council, the police asked me to represent them. For years I represented the Madison Professional Policemen's Association. We drew the first written labor contract of any governmental labor union in the state of Wisconsin, at least the first one for the City of Madison. I think they're still using that contract today with the City and the Madison Police Department.

Q:          When were you on the Madison Common Council?

A:          From 1965 to 1971-72, along in there.

After my wife's funeral in 1986, I had to start working again. I had played professional baseball and have been closely associated with the University of Wisconsin Baseball team. To make a living I got a job as a part-time pitching coach at the University of Wisconsin and picked up a little money elsewhere here and there. Morris Slavney, who was the Chairman of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, had some severe labor problems with the teachers in the 470 school districts in the state. All the teacher's unions decided to ask for "Fact-Finding", which was a procedure they used then as they could not strike. The Teacher's Union thought they could bring the system to its knees. So, Slavney was looking for Labor Arbitrators. He knew my labor background from when I was Bargaining Committee Chairman with the City and he asked me to be a labor arbitrator. I agreed and I went around to various places on school labor cases for two years. I had also represented Fuzzy Thurston, Paul Horning and Ray Nitschke who were players from the Green Bay Packers. I helped with their endorsement contracts such as for cigarettes and whiskey and whatever else they endorsed. The NFL players decided to go on a mini-strike before their pre-season schedule, what we call the exhibition schedule, because the owners wouldn't give the players pre-season pay, not even reimbursing them for their expenses. These guys had to come pay their own way, room and board and transportation and if they got hurt it was just too bad. So, they demanded I think it was $100 a game for the exhibition season. The owners refused so they went on strike. Before the first game they settled but one of the terms of the settlement was that each team had to have a representative on an Arbitration Panel. The Green Bay team chose me because I had known those football players that I had done some legal work for. I also represented the Left Guard, which was a chain of supper clubs in the state of Wisconsin which were owned by Fuzzy Thurston, Max McGee and Bill Martini. In their strike settlement, the players said, "we know Milo" and the owners who were represented by Attorney Jock Whitney in Green Bay and he knew me from trying cases against him. So, I was the Green Bay representative on the arbitration panel.

The next year, the American Baseball League did the same thing. They had two players unions — American and National League. The American League Union did the same thing and went on a little strike at the beginning for the year and finally they promptly settled it. Again, they had to hurriedly come up with a written contract, which had a grievance procedure. So they borrowed the one the NFL had. The American League President called up Pete Rozelle and asked if he could use the NFL arbitration panel. Then I got a call from Joe Cronin, one of my old boyhood heroes, who was a Hall of Fame second baseman for the Red Sox. He was president of the American League, and he asked me if I'd serve. (I would have served for nothing). So, then I started hearing things in baseball labor cases, which were interesting. I had one with Charlie Finley out in Oakland and others. I gained some labor experience and I also knew something about baseball.

Then, one year the players and owners from both baseball leagues ended with a new Union and a new labor contract. One of the terms of the new contract said that they would draw their arbitrators from a panel of arbitrators provided by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. I wasn't on that panel so I called the FMCS up and they said, "Well you have to have a lot of experience." That was when my experience with Morris Slavney and the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission came into play. The next thing I knew I was getting cases from FMCS and the American Arbitration Association and Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission in addition to baseball proceedings. Pretty soon I was an experienced labor arbitrator and that is what I principally do now. But back then it was just like starting a new career; it came at the time I came back to the practice of law after staying home to take care of my dying wife. It fit in perfectly. About 60-80 percent of what I do now is labor arbitration. It's extremely interesting work. The nice part about it is you don't have to do anything like drafting trial briefs and all these motions and instructions for the jury. You just show up for a hearing and absorb evidence the parties are presenting. It's ego gratifying also because unless you're a good arbitrator, the parties won't choose you again to hear their cases. It's judges in the courthouse where they belong to a political party in order to get elected whether they're good judges or not. In labor arbitration, the attorneys for the labor unions and for management select you because they know you've proven to be a good arbitrator. I have presided at hundreds of cases and my decisions and awards have been published from coast to coast in the American Labor Reports, which is published by the Bureau of National Affairs. That is the number one casebook for labor lawyers. The other one is CCH.

Right now I'm working on a case involving the Racine Firefighters Union who were given a promotion exam and the study materials for the exam didn't include all of the material the labor contract said it should. So, I set the promotion aside and thought that was the end of that case. All of a sudden the Union found out that six of the firefighters had not received notification of the previous hearing so we were going to have another one. I just got off the phone with a pretrial conference with the Racine City attorney. That's the kind of stuff I'm doing now.

I've also been an extremely devoted believer in the organized bar. I got out of law school and all the members of my old firm were all active in the Dane County Bar Association. In fact, Attorney. George Blake has been the perpetual treasurer and he used me to collect the money in his pace at the Bar Association luncheon meetings which are held every Tuesday at the Heidelberg Hofbrau Restaurant which, is right on the site where McDonalds is on the square next to the new Veteran's Museum. That was the restaurant later where the Hub Clothiers was. I'd collect the money and they had very interesting lectures by doctors and other experts, just like they do now except they didn't get credit for it then. They didn't have a requirement for continued education. But, because of that I became imbued with the necessity for an organized bar. I also had been working with these labor unions; the Bar was the closest thing we had to a union. We only have one profession after all, so we have to do everything we can to promote it. That is why I'm so involved in the organized bar. We must have protection from the outlandish ideas that those galoots on the Supreme Court sometimes come up with.

One year, I was elected president of the Dane County Bar Association, I think it was 1972 or 1973, and I put out a little Newsletter. Then the succeeding president died so I was asked to stay on as president until the president-elect could take over. They finally decided they wanted a full-time person who'd be fully responsible for getting out the Newsletter and running the Dane County Bar Association. So, I became an Executive Director of the Dane County Bar Association. The main reason I was asked to be a Dane County Bar Executive Director was because the membership liked to read the Newsletter. The Newsletter was also published throughout the state by the State Bar and it became quite famous. They also sent it down to the ABA and entered it in some kind of contest for local bar newsletters. A guy at the ABA saw it and gave it to a friend of his who was a Chicago literary agent. The literary agent he called me up and asked me if he could be my agent and write stuff for him for magazines, articles and essays. So I also became a journalist/essayist. I wrote for such magazines as Harper's Monthly, Esquire and I can't remember, Holiday, Mississippi Rag, for whom I'm still writing. Then one year, 1986, my agent died, my wife died and my dog died; that was a bad year for me. Without an agent you're not much in the magazine business.

So, I haven't been writing too much. Once in a while I get asked to write an essay for something.

I'm devoted to traditional jazz, too, some people call it Dixieland. They have this Bix Beeiderbeck jazz festival down in Iowa on the Mississippi River. So I wrote a piece on occasion because of the flood for the Mississippi Rag, a monthly magazine. They had a terrible flood in 1993 and I went down there. Because the ground was so wet, I had to get a lawn chair to sit on for the evening's jazz festival. When I was in Walgreen's buying a lawn chair, I saw a kid with an army uniform on buying a case of beer and I said, "Are you having a weekend drill?" He said, "No. Our National Guard Unit was supposed to be down to Quincy because all this flood and the road leading to the bridge is underwater and we're sandbagging it. However, our unit has been relieved so we don't have to stay down there. I'm buying a case of beer for my brother-in-law who's going to paint my house. But, I'm going back down to Quincy anyway." I asked if he meant was he going down there to sandbag even though his army unit has been relieved.

He said, "Yeah, I feel so sorry for those people." So, I said, "By God if you do it I'll do it too." So I went back to the hotel and changed clothes and went down to West Quincy, Mo., which was just about under-water. I replaced a fourteen-year-old girl on the sandbag line and worked the sandbags for four hours. But, that's getting away from the practice of law. But I did do a little literary piece on that little drama for a Des Moines magazine.

I'm trying to think of interesting things that I've done besides practicing law.

Q:          Why are you so enthused about arbitration work?

A:          Because in my arbitration business I can be more flexible than most lawyers who have to be in court. Because I'm a labor arbitrator I can set the hearing days and I can be more flexible in my time schedule.

When I was Executive Director of the Dane County Bar Association, I also ran the Lawyer Referral System. This was for people who couldn't find an attorney. They'd call my office which had a list — it operates in exactly the same way that a State Lawyer Referral System does now. That thing got to be such a pain in the neck that I finally had to quit that. I had a full-time secretary who did nothing but Lawyer Referral work. Finally, I just quit, I couldn't take it. They were paying me $25,000 a year, but I just couldn't take the Lawyer Referral System so I quit as Executive Director. Soon after that The State Bar patterned their Lawyer Referral System after mine.

How did I get elected to the Board of Governors? I didn't even know what the Board of Governors was. We used to have coffee in the lobby of the Lorraine Hotel, the rooms of which were rented to the Attorney General's once. The coffee shop, however, was still open. I used to have coffee with many of the lawyers in the Attorney General's office. At the coffee breaks we discussed the new hockey team at the UW and we'd dissect the various plays and goals and so forth. This obnoxious soul kept coming over to our table; he was little short guy with a tam; "Why has hockey become so exciting and crowd arousing?'', he'd ask. "Why do you have such large crowds in Madison at the University and there isn't any place else like it in the country?" We said, "Go away." He was such an obnoxious guy and kept intruding in our conversation. Hockey had replaced boxing at the University. So I told this guy that the reason Madison likes hockey so much is that "blood lust of the boxing fan has not been sated." Later that month, I picked up Sports Illustrated and the headline said "The Blood Lust of the Boxing Fan has not been Sated" That little obnoxious guy was Dan Levin who was a reporter for Sports Illustrated magazine. He said, "...Thus said by one of the devoted fans in the nearby restaurant," or something like that. But I wander astray.

When I first started practicing law there were thirteen Assistant Attorneys General and they also had a few law clerks working for them. Later, they filled the entire Lorraine building and even slop over elsewhere. There must be a couple hundred, people in the Attorney General's office now, in addition to attorneys representing each state division such as the DNR. In those days they probably had a staff of maybe fifteen or twenty attorneys.

Speaking of the Lorraine Hotel, when I first started law practice downtown, kitty corner from that hotel was a Sinclair station where the back of the downtown city library is now. It was the Sinclair gas station which had a big empty lot out in the back, which was a parking lot for the Lorraine's guests. The guy who ran that parking lot was also the groundskeeper for the Capitol. That guy cared for all that lawn around the Capitol, the mowing and raking and picking up paper in addition to running the parking lot. Needless to say, it wasn't as neat as it is now where they have a staff of several hundred that take care of the grounds. In fact, the grounds now are absolutely gorgeous. At one time it had long grass with trash and bare paths running through it.

I got out of law school in January 1952. The old courthouse is where the Dane County parking ramp is now. It was a red brick thing that had a first floor on which there was [  ] and the Country Probate Judge had courtrooms. The County Probate Judge [   ]. [   ] was drunk all the time but he was still a good judge. He was as a good a judge drunk as many judges I've seen sober. Then up on the third floor was Judge Herman Sachtjen, who was the father of Judge Bill Sachtjen. The courthouse had a jail next door and they also had a house where the sheriff lived. The sheriff’s wife was the cook for the jail. She was a good cook. In those days a sheriff couldn't succeed himself after two consecutive terms. The State Constitution said that. It has later been amended. Often, in the case of Dane County, the sheriff’s wife would fill in as County Sheriff when her husband's two-year terms was up. He would sit out a year and then he would serve again for another two years. Sheriff Franz Haas had such a wife. His wife was also an excellent cook and the attorneys could eat with the juries at noon during jury trials. The sheriff’s wife just added ingredients to the prisoner's menus.

Getting back to the Lorraine Hotel, I was complaining at coffee about all the paperwork that was coming from the new Executive Director of the State Bar. It was a guy named Jim Hough, who had taken Phil Habermann's place. I'd sit down at my desk beclouded by a worthless blizzard of paper, thinking, that's where my dues go. I think we were then paying $35 a month dues. Somebody at the coffee shop heard me and took a napkin and wrote on it "We, the undersigned, do hereby nominate Milo Flaten to the State Bar Board of Governors." All it took was ten names and there were certainly ten lawyers in the Lorraine Hotel that day. So, they sent it in to the State Bar. Soon, I got a letter back from the Executive Director saying, "Though unusual, your nomination paper appears to be in order and you hereby are on the ballot." I entitled my Newsletter reports — "Governors Report to the Troops" after George Washington. It told of the workings of the State Bar as a Board Member. That format has been followed up by Attorney Howard Goldberg, who succeeded me as Executive Director; I think they call him "Coordinator" now.

You're only allowed to succeed yourself once on the Board of Governors, you serve two consecutive terms. When my two terms were up I didn't know how I was going to write the Governor's Report to the Troops again if I wasn't a governor. I looked around to see what other officers were up for election and I saw that Treasurer was open so I told the State Bar that I would like to be Treasurer. They said, 'No. We've already nominated someone to be Treasurer." So I went to the Dane Cty. Bar Assoc. noon luncheon and circulated a nomination paper. You had to have 150 signatures and, of course, while 150 people didn't show up for the noon luncheon, I got quite a few. Then I went to the State Public Defender's Christmas Party and places like that to obtain my 150 signatures, to be able to run for Treasurer of the State Bar. Of course by then my name was well known all over the state. I not only defeated the two other nominees put up by the Establishment but I got more votes then the other two candidates pit together. (I got more votes than the two candidates for State President, too). After I served two years as State Treasurer, I was eligible to come back to the Board of Governors of Dane County's representative. I have served on the Board of Governors, except for the last year, every year since, I think. I know I've served longer by far than any other member of the Board of Governors. Pat Sheedy, of Milwaukee, who later became a judge, served the next longest, then Frank Gimbel, also of Milwaukee.

I came to the State Bar Board of Governors the same year Steve Smay was hired to replace Jim Hoff. When Jim Hoff had been Executive Director he decided that he was going to be the boss, the bar was going to be led by him and not the President or even by the Board — so they fired him. Rod Kittleson was the President then and he said we couldn't take this guy anymore. So, they hired Steve Smay the month following my ascent to the Board of Governors. At that time the State Bar meetings met all the time at Lake Lawn Hotel at Delevan. Then we moved over to the Abby at Lake Geneva when the other place got to be too small. My experience on the Board of Governors has been I can't remember exactly when I started, I have various plaques and awards that were presented to me. At the end of every term each State President, for some reason, gives a parting gift to the members of the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors was initially rather small, by today's standards. I think we had five members from Milwaukee, one or two from Madison and then one from the other various districts, which corresponded to the attorneys' professional districts. Soon I decided that we should have more representation from Dane County, which after all, was growing large and we were way outnumbered proportionally by either five or [  ] members from Milwaukee. I got through a proposal in which the State Bar was redistricted. I think that was a mistake in a way, although Madison now has five representatives and Milwaukee has about nine or ten. Too many. The State Bar's Board of Governors has become so large as to become unmanageable. There are, I think, forty-nine official members of the Board of Governors — forty-five Governors and the President, President-Elect, the Past President and the Treasurer and the Secretary. I think it's almost fifty members and it's too large a group. As a result, things don't get done through the managing body of the Board but is virtually always done through the President, which is probably a good idea because he can get his or her program through. By the way, we have our first female President, this is 1993, of the State Bar. I think she's going to be a dandy. She's smart and young and she's everything that the State Bar needs for an initial female President because females have to do everything twice as well as men in order to be accepted.

Anyway, the Board of Governors is now run by the President who decrees her program to be a manageable group called the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee decides on the feasibility of various proposals or items of business that come through the Board of Governors. The Board merely rubber stamps what the Executive Committee has been doing the night before. The Executive Committee originally was designed to fill in between the Board meetings. The Board only meets once every three months. I was admitted to Law School and to the State Bar when it was a voluntary bar and one of the first things I heard about was making membership mandatory. State Bar conventions were held at first at Elkhart Lake near Sheboygan where there was a large pavilion where the meetings were conducted. The hot issue at the time was whether the bar should be integrated, that is, if there should be mandatory membership in the State Bar. That proposal finally went through and was made permanent. Later, Steve Levine had it set aside and we went voluntary again for two years and then we went back to mandatory. I've seen the various systems for running the Bar and I think it runs a lot better under the mandatory membership. This is mainly because the Bar wouldn't have enough dues and members to take on all of the tremendous programs, pro bono, (which is a euphemism for "free"), etc. But now I've run out of things to say.

Q:          No, I don't think you've run out of things to say. You mentioned the old courthouse a little bit. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

A.          The old courthouse had an elevator. I told you that Judge Herman Sachtjen's courtroom was on the third floor and it was the only one up there. In the closing years that courtroom would have the brightening benefit of a fresh coat of paint plus it had lots of windows. Much of the light, however, was obstructed by the green mantle of tree leaves, but somehow it always seemed cheerful in his courtroom. Even if a lawyer had a John Dillinger with him as a client, he somehow got a spiritual uplift upon entering old Herman Sachtjen's courtroom

However, to get there a lawyer would have had to survive the most harrowing elevator ride since the Harold Lloyd movies. Old timers couldn't decide which was the scariest to contemplate — the free-swinging antique elevator or its ancient operator. The elevator didn't have vertical guide rails as elevators do today.  So, it swung free. That old lift was a diabolical assemblage of revenge designed by Otis the elevator man, to make Dane County lawyers feel they soon would renew their relationship with their Maker. If fright didn't set in upon stepping into the elevator car, terror would start when the antiquated vertical pilot approached the hand throttle. Augie Klitzman, who was the father of the head of the County Traffic Department Russ Klitzrnan, was so old, shaky and skinny that he had barely enough strength to press the 'hip" lever. Thereafter, the journey upward was a free-swinging nightmare, which culminated with the arrival at the approximate floor. The car always halted ten inches above or below its destination. The hazardous flight to the 3rd level was worth it, however, because there one his bench was the smiling, pink-cheeked countenance of Judge Herman Sachtjen.

When I first began practicing law, the Dane County Courthouse was very elderly. Of course, it hadn't been built to service Madison's vast increase in population. Circuit Judges Reis and Sachtjen were hearing cases in Dane, Jefferson, Rock and Sauk Counties. They literally rode the circuit. I presume that's why they call them Circuit Judges.

One of my duties as a young lawyer was to go to the "Call of the Calendar" in those various counties in our Circuit. On that day, the judge had all of the cases that were filed for trial stacked in a big pile sitting on his desk. At the start of the proceeding he queried all the attorneys who were going to try the case, whether they were really going to try it or not. His clerk would call out: Jones vs. Smith and ask, "Attorney so-and-so, are you ready for trial?" That's how he set up his calendar. They did that even in Dane County as well as in the other counties of the Circuit. I think they abolished it in Dane County the year after I got out of Law School. In the other counties, Sauk, Rock, and Jefferson, they retained the Calendar Call however. After that morning's consuming ceremony, the lawyers would all go out to the country club and get drunk. I had to drive home in the firm's ancient car (I couldn't afford one myself) on some ancient highway afterward, so I was always nervous in the presence of those noisy, wild lawyers. I remember one time I went to the "Call of the Calendar" in Rock County. We were in the courthouse in Janesville (Rock County also had a courthouse in Beloit) and the jury box had a big support beam go through it. A lawyer there, Leon Feingold, who's the father of our present U.S. Senator, was a well-known attorney in Janesville. A rookie, I hadn't been told what to say. "Just go there and represent the firm", the senior partner said. I hadn't ever been to one before. Our case was an All-State case and was the first one on the calendar. Mr. Feingold came up to me and whispered in my ear, "You're supposed to say “The Defendant is ready for trial”.” The other day, I wrote Senator Feingold and reminded him of the time his father was so kind to me and saved my bacon at the Rock County "Call of the Calendar".

Getting back to our courthouse, we had no air conditioning, of course, and all the windows were open in the summertime, especially up in the third floor where old Judge Herman Sachtjen was. It often was stifling hot in the summertime. There was a hornet's nest outside under an eave. They'd open the windows at the top and the window at the bottom. Of course, then the hornets would fly into the courtroom. The jury often would be terrified of being stung by hornets.

The second floor had actual marble floors set in a parquet fashion, such as you see today.

The second year of my practice started up a new court down in the basement in an old coal bin. They called it Small Claims court. Judge Douglas Nelson was the original Small Claims judge. The newly constructed courtroom had a screen door that opened out into the gravel parking lot behind the courthouse. Lawyers were not permitted to park there. Only judges, the District Attorney and Traffic Department motorcycles could park there.

The City Police Department was over on Butler Street between Main Street and Washington Avenue. Next door was Fire Station No. 1 and the Fire Chief. Then the County progressed from motorcycles to squad cars in the Dane County Traffic Department. More paved roads meant that automobiles replaced motorcycles in the Traffic Department. The Sheriff had his own deputies and staff. The two departments merged eventually. In those days they had all sorts of courts. They had Circuit Courts, Superior Court, and County Court, which was strictly the probate court. The Superior Court had been created especially for Dane County. It handled criminal and traffic offenses. The most famous judge at the time was [  ] who was judge of the Superior Court. He had snow white hair and looked rather superior. He adjourned his court at noon when he departed to the Hideaway Bar for afternoon drinks. Of course, he never came back to work that day. Attorney Bill Aberg in my firm was a buddy of these old guys. All those old lawyers and judges would get over at the Madison Club once a week and play cards. [   ] would drink a lot then too. One of my jobs was to come down to the Madison Club in the firm car and drive him home. That was because I think the buses stopped running at 6 p.m. and by then he was too drunk to make it. Besides, he lived near me. [   ] was even a harder drinker. He fell down the backstairs as he was leaving the back of the Avenue Bar. I think it was also called the Avenue Bar back then. Anyway, there was a stairway going out the backdoor and he fell ass-over-teakettle, fractured his skull and died.

The old red stone courthouse had Superior Courtroom on the first floor where all the traffic cases were heard. On the second floor, I think were located the one Circuit Courtroom and the clerk's office. Also on the second floor was the clerks of Superior and County Court as was the County Probate Court itself. Way up on the top was Circuit Judge Sachtjen's courtroom and chambers. Funny how I can remember that one. Most of the time, I tried my cases in front of Judge Reis. That courthouse was right where the Dane County ramp is now, across from St. Raphael's Church.

The new courthouse on Doty and Wisconsin (Martin Luther King) had no windows. We, who tried cases all the time, got to be a bit claustrophobic at first because we couldn't look out the window and see the trees and leaves. The new courthouse was quite large and at first the courtrooms sat empty. I think we had an extra courtroom at that time. Since then they've been filling up rapidly. They even had a couple of state offices in there for a long time. The judges tried cases promptly and kept their calendars clean. The judges today are often hampered by attorneys who try to change the world instead of collecting damages for their clients. Now it looks as though we're going to have to build a new courthouse.

Q:          You've mentioned a couple to time changes that you've seen in the practice of law since you've been practicing. Can you identify for me some changes that may have improved the practice of law?

A:          Probably the worst change that the law practice has to suffer is that the courts are so far behind on their calendars. I think that comes as a result of the invention of the computer. It isn't the plaintiff’s lawyers who cause the delays and for courts getting and farther behind. It's the defense lawyers who have now computerized their pre-trial discovery. They just punch in on a set of facts onto the computer and it then produces a series of "interrogatories" that have to be answered, oral interrogatories, written interrogatories and so forth. Answering all the interrogatories causes so much delay that the cases are a long time getting to trial. We used to be able to get a case to trial in about two months. For example, a very serious automobile accident, now takes two years at least, if the defense wants to delay the thing.

I don't think there are things that are better now. I think the organized bar is a little bit better and the Dane County Bar Association is a lot more serious in their intent. Most lawyers agree with me that we only have one profession and we ought to do everything we can to promote it, and keep it going and keep it in as good a shape as we can. The biggest improvement is that we only have a single court of general jurisdiction now instead of a polygut in every County like we used to.

Q: Well, we've been talking for quite some time now, and I'm wondering if you have some advice that you might give young people who are beginning in the practice of law today.

A:          The best advice is the advice that I got from Judge William Sachtjen. He always stressed that we shouldn't be too impressed with our own sense of self-importance. Lawyers have a tendency to feel that they are very important. There's nothing that's more irritating than an attorney who thinks he's a big shot. So I guess the best advice is to work hard, be honest, and don't be impressed with your own self-importance.

Q:          Thank you very much.