Transcript of Oral History Interview with Diane SORENSON for the Dane County Bar Association

Interviewer:  Teresa Kobelt

Date of Interview:  November 1, 2015

Location:  606 San Juan Trail, Madison, WI

Transcribed by:  Ann M. Albert

TERESA KOBELT:  Today is November 1, 2015, and this is Teresa Kobelt.  I'm at the home of Diane Sorenson in Madison to interview her as part of the Dane County Bar Association Oral History Project.

This interview will be recorded and transcribed and made available for people interested in the evolution and development of the practice of law in Dane County.

Diane, do I have your permission to record you and have a transcript prepared?

DIANE SORENSON:  Yes, you do.

BY TERESE KOBELT:

Q   We've got just a general outline that we follow.  We're not gonna follow it perfectly, but just to kind of have some consistency between the different interviews.  Can you give us your full name?

A   Diane M. -- M for Marie -- Sorenson.

Q   And where do you live?

A   606 San Juan Trail.

Q   Can you tell me about your family.  Are you married?

A   I am married to Dan Stier.  I have one biological child, three stepchildren.  Biological child:  CASEY Nicks.  Stepchildren:  ALYSSA Stier, Dean Stier, and Jacob Stier.

Q   And are you working now, or have you retired?

A   I retired in 2009, so six years retired.

Q   How do you keep yourself busy these days?

A   Oh, that's been changing over the years, but right now I have a number of -- a dance class, a yoga class, and a meditation group.  Periodically I take art classes, and periodically I volunteer, though I have no organizations I volunteer with right now.  Family visits take up a lot of time because all of our family members live outside of the city of Madison.  And then we also do have personal travel, the latest adventures being South Africa and Italy.

Q   So it sounds to me like you've been able to pursue some of your more artistic interests.  Were those -- is that something that you've always done, or has retirement allowed you to pursue that a little bit more?

A   Retirement allows you to follow up everything more -- travel,cooking, sketching, painting.  Unfortunately for the family budget, I really enjoy remodeling the home.  A lot of my artistic talent goes to home changes.  But yes, it's wonderful.  It's wonderful for developing all the areas of interest that were squeezed when you were practicing law.

Q   Let's back up to prior to you becoming a lawyer. Where were you born and when?

A   I was born in Racine, Wisconsin on July 4, 1945.

Q   And can you tell me about your parents?

A   My father was a -- owned a small trucking company.  His father died when he was in his first year of college, so dad was very young when he took over the business at, like, 19 along with his brother, Arnie, who was about a year older, and ran the business his entire life.  So a small businessman.

My mother was a dancer in the vaudeville adagio acrobatic world and left home about 16, traveled in the United States and Europe and even as far as Russia from 16 to about mid-twenties when she returned to Racine and met my father and married him and then became a mother of five children, staying at home most of the time, and my father being the sole provider with his moving company.  And this is not maybe great for the audiotape, but I have pictures of my mother as a young woman.  She was a little cutie.  I just love the glamour of those years.

Q   Wow.  That's really something.  I can see you – a little of her in you.  Where did you go to grade school?

A   Grade school for the most part from second grade forward -- first grade was St. Mary's.  Second grade forward was St. Patrick, which happened to be the school right next to our home.  So there was no excuse for not going.  Catholic school with church every morning and then classes with the Dominican sisters. More about that I will not say.

Q   What about high school?

A   But I will add that the nuns maintained strict control, and our classes, typical class was between 60 and 70.

Q   Are you kidding!

A   No.  No.  There were, like, rows of 12, like, six rows or five rows of 12 or 13 or 14.  So they were very, very, very packed, and they were regimented.  High school was -- I had two years at St. Catherine's, and then I switched to Horlick High School.  My parents' marriage was a Catholic-Lutheran marriage, which is unusual in those days, my father being Lutheran.  And the Catholic school tuition with five children was just too much for the family coffers, so I switched to public school in my junior year.  I think it was a good thing for me.

Q   Wow.  And where did you go to college?

A   University of Wisconsin, first at the Racine Extension, which was, like, a very small building with crooked stairs in downtown Racine, and then a year off working at the gas company to save money for the big University of Wisconsin in Madison.  And I transferred there and graduated there in 1969.

Q   What was your undergraduate degree?

A   Psychology.  I was a math major until my junior year, and then I got into a course called Advanced Algebra and lost all understanding of what was going on and switched swiftly to psychology and took a tremendous number of psychology courses and managed to graduate in four years.  Big switch.

Q   Did you immediately go to law school?

A   No.  I graduated.  I had a friend who was in the Teacher Corps -- this is 1969, so we have to go back kind of in time.

I had a friend who was in the Teacher Corps in the inner city of Chicago, and she persuaded me that they needed terrific young teachers in Chicago, regardless of the lack of training, and they would train you over the summer in a three-month summer school, and then you would teach in the inner city of Chicago.  And so I went to Chicago with another friend from Racine, who was a college roommate.  So it was Susan, Marilyn, and I on the south side of Chicago renting an apartment together and each of us going out and teaching in different schools.

I taught primarily at Sir Walter Scott School, which sounds remarkably British for an inner-city school, but it was the inner city of Chicago, and primarily subbed for other teachers, which, um, is an interesting experience.  I think everyone should do it at least for a year or so.  Learned a great deal.  Not so sure I taught that much, but learned a great deal myself just simply being in another culture, completely different culture for a year. Not a, even then, not a particularly safe location for anyone; me, the kids, anyone.  Periodically the school would shut down early because the P. Stone Rangers were rumbling, and people just got sent home.  So it was not a particularly safe environment.  In the school was fine.  And the kids -- there was an incredible range, as there is in school today.  The kids ranged from, you know, families that were very supportive, did a lot of reading, had a lot of focus for their kids, were very involved in school, to kids who moved a lot and so had no stability at all.  You know, primarily that's what I'd say.  You know, you didn't know their parents.  They went from aunt to uncle, sometimes down South, sometimes in Chicago, sometimes in the north end of Chicago, so they came and they went a lot and really never got grounded anyplace.  I think that was one of the most difficult problems we faced.

But also the schools had 24 books for 30 kids,that kind of thing.

Q   That does sound difficult.  How long did you do that?

A   I did that for a year.  And then I returned to Madison and got married to Steve Nicks and taught at Queen of Peace, the kind of complete opposite teaching experience as a first grade teacher in a Catholic school in Madison where the children, um, were virtually, with one exception, virtually all well prepared for first grade.  Half a dozen of them were reading.  Others were very close to reading.  One child had not gone to kindergarten and really needed to be caught up to the rest of the group.  But we had kids doing third-grade math and fourth-grade reading and very involved parents who came into the classroom and read with the kids and overlooked the homework assignments.  And periodically one or two of them would challenge me for not challenging the children enough, you know, not causing them to stretch enough.  But very overall just an incredibly easy group to teach because they were so ready.

And then I decided I would try a curriculum instruction program in order to become an actual -- actually a real teacher and spent a year and a third, year and a half in the University getting masters credits in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis on teaching in disadvantaged schools and had an internship at Aldo Leopold here in Madison.  And that was really where I decided I didn't want to teach.  I found that I didn't like the way teachers were treated.

Q   Even back then?

A   Yeah.  I don't think -- it was a combination of kind of the principal's iron fist and some of the parents.  Not all of them.  There -- as usual, there's a range. But I just felt that teachers were -- their skills and expertise didn't lead to being treated like a master teacher.  They were, I think, kept in kind of a young -- young person kind of state, so -- and I have to end the other part was I thought I was a good teacher in the morning from 8:00 to 12:00, from 9:00 to 12:00, whatever it was.  And then by the afternoon I was kind of tired of the kids.  So -- and they were still there.  They didn't go away, and they still wanted attention, and they still needed programming.  And some of that was a recognition of my own personal extravert, introvert, however you might want to call it, you know, involvement in the high level of energy that kids have, that ability to stay with 'em.  So then I decided not to be a teacher and didn't know what to be.

And I'll just move into the next question and say my husband then, Steve Nicks, persuaded me that I should take the LSAT and think about law school.  It was way beyond anything I ever considered.  I knew no lawyers growing up.  I knew no women lawyers, of which the only image I had of a woman lawyer was Katharine Hepburn.  You know, that was the only -- right, I mean, she was in, you know, My Girl Friday or Double -- or, you know, that couldn't have been the one --      Double Tables or, you know, what's the Spencer Tracy movies?  And I really didn't identify with that upper-class British kind of eastern United States woman who was a lawyer, so it really seemed like a really big reach for me.  And it wasn't until after I took the LSAT and did well that I thought maybe it was within range.

Q   Sorry.  I was just reading the question to see if I missed anything.

A   I think I did page 2.

Q   We've covered Number 2.  So tell me about when you entered law school.  Where?

A   I entered the -- I did have a year off.  It was an interesting year at the bank because Steve was working in the south side of Milwaukee in the Consumer Protection Office for the Department of Justice, working on consumer issues for lower-income families.  And that year I worked in the Bellwood National Bank, which was absolutely horrible.  I mean, it was just very sexist.  They dressed -- I worked as a teller, and they dressed the tellers up in these cute little outfits.  They had a little show with the new teller outfits every year.  And they -- and then they dressed us up in little plaid outfits and short skirts.  It was very ridiculous.  But the men -- I know I was very angry because I came in and I -- they tested everyone, and I did very well on the math or statistics or whatever they tested us on, astoundingly well.  And if I were a man, I would have been put in a position to make progress up through the organization.  As a woman, I was put in a uniform to be a teller with no option.  And, you know, I think I got back at them because I was a terrible teller.  I was the worst teller they ever had.  I mean, my -- my booth was -- I always say it was a little bit like the horse races where sometimes I won, sometimes I made money, sometimes I lost money.  The idea was obviously to zero out, and that only happened about, you know, ten percent of the time.  So eventually, they moved me to stock transfer where there was no possibility of all that happening.  And I thought -- I didn't do it deliberately, but I think it had to do with passive-aggressive.  At any rate, I was not a good teller, and it was a terrible atmosphere.  There really were no -- there was no future for bright, young, college graduate women there except being dressed up in that little uniform and standing as a teller.  And a teller job is not easy.  But the point was there was no future.  And the men, I know, started opening accounts for people and worked their way up in the bank.  And then when I left -- it's one of the memories that I have about sexism in my life -- two of the people, of the fellows on the rail working with opening accounts and loans and the like wanted to go to law school, but one in particular did not get into the U.W. and, you know, broached that with me saying that, you know, I was taking a man's place and I would never use my degree, and I should be ashamed, and it was probably a sexist decision to put me in anyway, a gender-favoring decision.  And since he'd been talking so much in the bank, I knew his LSATs, I knew his grades, and I knew I had him nailed.  And I just waited for him to ask me how I did or what I did and to be able to tell him and have him go, "Well, you know, well, maybe it was another test."  But it really was one of those experiences that burned in my mind how difficult, how uneven the playing field was for men and women and how important it was to not be vulnerable to the current standards.  I'm sure they're changed at the bank, but this was 1971, 1971 to '72, and that's where they were at that time.

So then I started law school in 1972, graduated in '75 from the U.W.  And that really lit a fire under me.

Q   Did you work while you were in law school?

A   Um, I did an internship or two.  But I had my first child in the -- after my first year, in the summer after my first year.  So, um, just being a mom, going to school for the next two years.  I did graduate in three years.  But that was my primary commitment for the second two years.

Q   Do you remember any particular memories from law school, like classes, professors that stand out?

A   Oh, I have several memories.  One was -- one was with Professor Brody of Constitutional Law.  And he was sort of the original Socratic method where he called on people, and then if they answered -- they didn't answer, they weren't particularly well prepared or didn't answer a question well, he -- I don't know if I'd say he made fun of them, but he made it clear that their responses were subpar, not well thought out, not mature, not well thought out.  And I remember getting really mad at him and writing a letter to him telling him that I thought he shouldn't be disrespectful of students, that we were all doing our best, and many of us had many responsibilities in addition to studying and also had not done this before and were trying very hard to do it well and that we didn't need to have someone be sarcastic about our efforts to answer questions or to respond.  So it was a long letter.  I was outraged.

And to his credit, he stopped me and said he had never received a letter like that before, and he appreciated my fervor, and that it was something he was gonna think about and try to keep in mind as the years went on.  And I look back now and think, would I do that now?  I just felt so passionately about how people should be treated.  And it was also probably my first experience with any type of class where teachers were not supportive, engaging, trying to advance your learning in a kind of a nurturing way.  It was the first time someone actually cut people down and challenged them and then made it clear that they weren't adequate in their thinking or where they fell short in their thinking.  So I was new to that as well, but I'm not sure -- it's just interesting that I felt that strongly.

Q   What did you think of law school?

A   There were, like everyone else, there were goods, the bads, and the uglies.  The bad was, I think, to my recollection of it anyway, is that it acted as though everyone in the legal world was primarily reading case law and trying to divine where the law would go.  And that is a percentage of the work of a lawyer.  But it seemed to be a large percentage, 90 percent of law school.  And in real lawyering I think it's, I don't know what, 30 percent or 25 percent.  It's important to do it well, but it's not everything.

Flipping that over, on the good was challenges, that very same thing I reacted against, challenging your thinking, you know, challenging your thinking, challenging your analysis, looking for holes in your analysis.  I think not going, like, with your heart or not going with what would be good or good for a good outcome or not, not making emotional decisions or not -- questioning your first conclusion and asking what am I missing, what am I missing, what am I missing, what else do I need to know, where are the holes in my thinking, what's the other approach, what haven't I thought of?  I thought law school really was the of doing that.  And that's a huge gift, and I think I did it pretty well, actually.  So that's the good.

I thought the professors really cared about the students.  I think they wanted the students to excel, and they used their skills, their talents, in an effort to produce really good lawyers.

Q   And we're gonna move into your career a little bit.  First I would just like to do a basic overview, and then we can go back into some detail. If you could just tell me generally what you first started out, where you went and the course of your career.  And then we'll go back to the beginning.

A   Okay.  Graduated.  Steve and I, my husband and I, moved to Portage, Wisconsin.  We opened a small private practice, Nicks & Nicks Law Firm, a real, true small practice above a hardware store.

I ran for district attorney in 1976 and won the office and took office in January of 1977; had two two-year terms as DA in Columbia County.  Then moved back to Madison, spent about six months working part-time with Johnson, Swingen & Atterbury, a small plaintiffs trial lawyers firm.  Then joined the Department of Justice in 1981, early '82, '81, and then stayed at Justice for 16 years.  And then was appointed Dane County DA and elected Dane County DA, and then appointed circuit court judge and then elected circuit court judge.

Q   Oh.  Quite a career.  So tell me about your firm.  You said it was above a hardware store.  Just the two of you?

A   It was.

Q   What kind of law did you practice?

A   General practice law.  I was -- I was really nervous about clients accepting me as a woman because it was a small, very, very conservative community, farming, a lot of farmers and then small businesses, but a very conservative community.  That didn't seem to be much of a problem.  But getting clients was.  You really have to get to know people.  So we did divorces, wills, property disputes, real estate transactions, all the kind of hoi polloi of everyday life in a small firm, I think.

Q   How much more experienced was Steve at that point?

A   He graduated in '72, I believe, so he had about five, four or five, five years.

Q   Did you know anybody in the area that you could use you know, as a mentor?  Or was it all kind of just learning as you go?

A   Just learning as you go.  Um, I think probably I used Steve as a mentor, but he was also -- went from the Department of Justice to private practice, so we were kind of learn-as-you-go together.  But I think he was a mentor.

Q   What brought you up to Portage?

A   Steve.  He was -- he had been at the Department of Justice for about five years and felt like he was repeating himself somewhat, I think, and came from a small town, DePere, Wisconsin, liked the small town feeling, wanted to own something of his own, wanted to build something rather than be an employee of someone and just, I think, wanted the adventure of having his own law firm.  And I had no -- no really keen direction.  You know, there wasn't -- I didn't want A or B in Madison.  So it seemed like a fine way to start out a legal career.

Q   I'm looking at the list of questions, and it just says -- it asks if you're comfortable talking about what you were earning back then.

A   Oh, well, I don't remember what I was earning then.  We did things like, you know, the Amish, we had some Amish clients, and they brought us eggs.  We really -- and I only did it from graduation in '75 to the end of ‘76.  And by 1976, what happened was the DA there was older and not very aggressive in court, and people were looking for someone else to run.  And they came -- they were looking for anyone to run, I think.  But they came to our law firm since we were relatively new in town and wouldn't have to close down a longstanding practice.  And I decided -- I had had an internship in the Dane County DA's Office, and I thought prosecution was pretty interesting.  And between us, Steve was more interested in the private practice.  That's why he wanted to move there, and that was just developing.  So we decided that I would be the candidate for the DA's Office.  And that put me in -- that had me running all over the county.  So by then, you know, I'm really not making a lot of money, but I'm knocking on a lot of doors and doing parades and chicken shoos and 4-H.  And that really -- that was a twist that affected me in the rest of my career because elected office is different.  Running for elected office is different from building a practice in the sense of -- not in the sense of selling yourself 'cause I think you do in both cases sell yourself, but in the amount of time and effort you spend.  That's all I did probably for three or four or five months.  Best thing for me was really touting my own credentials and my own ability.  And it's I think not typical of most women to do that.  It wasn't my experience to go around saying I'm terrific, you know, I really can do this job, I've got the energy, I've got the focus, I've got the ability, I work with people really well, I really know how to use my time,I have a good feeling for the community.  Just you have to sell yourself, and you have to sell your -- sell people on the idea that you're better than someone who's substantially your senior and you can do a really important job that you haven't done before without a lot of experience doing it.

I had my internship, and I made that -- I tried to make it sound like, you know, ten years of major trial work.  But it wasn't.  But I did the best I could to say I've been in the courtroom.  And I had been in the courtroom quite a bit because I sat there with other lawyers and I did a bunch of speeding and misdemeanor, so, you know, I could say I was in the courtroom.

But the best thing on earth for me was honestly just stand up and say give me this responsibility, you'll be satisfied, I'll serve this county well, to make positive, affirmative statements about myself for months.  And it taught me something about the value of doing that.  And that stayed with me.  That gave me a certain amount of confidence.  In some ways it was bravado, false confidence, but it sort of evolved into real confidence eventually.

But then I became DA, and I had an office where there were no -- I was the only person in the office.  So I did everything.  I did the traffic.  I did the murders.  I did the drug cases.  I did -- I did everything because there was only me.  There weren't any immediate mentors, but the DA's Association was very supportive.  I went to a lot of programs, a lot of trial programs, management programs, election programs.  But, again, the first one I went to as DA for new DAs there were, like, there were 48 people, and I was the only woman.  So it was still fairly early for that.  But, again, that was, to me, it was my own glass ceiling I broke.  So it was really, really a wonderful way to begin a career.  It was death-defying.  I often didn't know what I was doing. I was way out of my depth.  But I swam.  I really learned to swim.  And so I think it -- and it taught me that I could be elected, taught me not to be afraid of that. And I think it was important to me when I went to law school to not be afraid of the courtroom – I think I started out with some of that -- rather than I'm gonna be a champion, I don't want to be afraid of, and really persuaded me by the end of that four years that I didn't have to be afraid of anything, you know, really.  And I sometimes see people start in larger organizations, and I think that's too bad because you're not out on the edge the way I was.  You're brought along.  You do have mentors.  You probably have great models.  But you don't have to take the risks and explore what -- find out for yourself what you can do the way I did.  So it was very, very helpful.

Came back to Madison.  Was glad also to not be elected.  Oftentimes you move along.  And the Department of Justice let me work with really outstanding lawyers.  That was the time when I worked side by side with people who were just brilliant lawyers, brilliant legal skills, brilliant legal management skills, were much more -- in many ways more sophisticated than I was.  So that was wonderful.

Q   What area were you in in Justice?

A   Almost everything they had, actually.  I started out in criminal litigation.

Q   If I can ask, what year did you go to Justice?

A   Um, 1981.

Q   Okay.

A   So, in fact, when you said income, I'll just mention when I was DA I was paid $18,000 a year, which I thought was pretty enormous.  It was my first full-time income.  And as a teacher I'd been paid about between $5,000 and $7,000.  So you can see what a giant jump it was in income to get up to $18,000.

At Department of Justice I started in criminal litigation.  I think I spent four or five years there and then went to civil litigation, which was a wonderful change because I got into federal courts and got me into civil cases and to, you know, the different kind of discovery.  I used to think it would be wonderful to have the discovery you had in civil cases, and I learned sometimes it was absolutely dreadful, so -- but it let me experience that world and get into different courtrooms and different places in the state.  Then I went to criminal appeals.  And that really gave me a good, I think, a really good feeling for watching out for appellate errors, understanding -- better understanding what kind of challenges can be raised after trial, and spent maybe two years there, and also did a child abuse grant for one year,primarily -- that was primarily programming and educational programming throughout the state.  So it was a really good variety.

And then got appointed Dane County DA.  And then with the Dane County DA, a primary -- one of my primary desires then was to relate to a community again instead of floating around the state in different cities where people didn't know you or different courtrooms where nobody knew you.  You came in cold, as it were.  And that was really interesting and fun for a while, but then I kind of felt it was time to come back to earth, come back to community.  And getting into the Dane County DA's Office let me do that.

Q   How did that experience being in the Dane County DA's Office compare to Columbia County?

A   It was tremendously different, I think.  Managing -- you know, it was a difference between managing an office with 35 lawyers and being the trial lawyer of the office, managing myself.  When I left Columbia County, I had one assistant, and that was -- that was it.  So the manager role was major. The budget role, the budget was always a responsibility of the DA.  But my budget in Columbia County was so straightforward and so simple.  In Dane County, the combination of county budget and state budget and grants, that was a much more complicated budget picture.  And I think in the four years I was in Columbia County, I got to know many of the county board members very well.  And I was only in the Dane County DA's Office for about three years and didn't get to know people in the county board, didn't have a working relationship with the county board that I had.  It was okay, but it would have taken another, you know, three or four or five years, I think, to really get effective in my relationship with the county board.  Election, just much more media-oriented, much less personal.  You don't knock on every door in Dane County the way I knocked on every door in Columbia County.  So it was much more -- much more of a media campaign.  There was still the personal element, but there was also media.  So it was -- and running every two years felt like -- in Columbia County raising money was not the issue it was in Dane County. Raising money was important in Dane County.  So the scale was completely different.

Q   Is there anything particularly memorable?  Is there some big case that stands out in your mind?

A   In Dane County?

Q   Yeah.

A   You know, some of the cases were -- um, Barry Alvarez's son microwaved a parrot.  You know, some of those -- some cases had enormous immunity – community input.  You know, the community was very aroused by that, very -- the political cases were -- I didn't have that many of them.  I didn't have the ones that Brian Blanchard had, for example.  But to the extent that I had them, the fervor of the political party whose person was being charged was unlike anything I'd met in Columbia County.  Those were completely different.

On a regretful note, I think the charge of obstruction of justice of Patty Murphy, the rape victim, is something that was a regrettable and really caused me to examine what information to give weight to.  I had to make a determination as district attorney about the merits of the case when you're not personally involved and you haven't done the investigation or you haven't questioned the witnesses. So that -- that one was a regretful prosecution.  I ended up dismissing it.  But it stayed with me as something that I wish I had found a way to come to that answer earlier on.  So difficult in that I didn't handle -- I didn't have the hands-on with the cases and still had to make ultimate judgments on them. The Salim Amara case, the bus burning case was just a tragedy of incredible import.  But, again, I wasn't primarily a trial lawyer.  I'm more aware of cases that reached the DA because of the degree of public concern.

Q   From there you went to the circuit court?

A   And that was in the year 2000, June of 2000; began in the juvenile world, which was the world I had the least of.  It seems like my career is reconstructed to make sure that I touched base with every possible type of law.  And I really liked the juvenile world.  I really thought you could make a difference in children's lives and in family's lives. It was a very unwieldy world, very difficult to get all of the parties into the courtroom and to move cases forward.  So it was a very frustrating assignment, but also very satisfying assignment, very interesting.  I like -- I think Dane County really has some wonderful resources and some wonderful, committed social workers and lawyers on both sides, and it was an interesting practice.

And then criminal and then civil, and then back to criminal, I think.

Q   So you had to go through the election process again?

A   Right.  Um, and I didn't have an opponent that time.  It was then I think more or less unusual to have an opponent.  I think the only -- even though I was appointed, it was unusual to have a challenge to a sitting judge.  I think Paulette Siebers before me had a challenge and lost.  But there had to be -- and I think it was generally true that there had to be, like, some controversy like Archie Simonson -- was that his name; I forgot -- who made the comment about the victim in a rape case dressing like she was asking for it or something like that.  Generally, people didn't – you know, it was kind of a -- kind of a quiet, sleepy backwater.  Unless you did something outrageous, you didn't have a challenge. Nowadays I think it's a little different.

Q   How did you go from being a general practitioner to being a prosecutor and then, you know, eventually becoming a judge?  How do you compare the two as far as being a lawyer, changing that hat, or being an advocate to not being an advocate?

A   Right.  Both, um, in the -- first of all, the things that are in common, in all -- in every position, I think first being, you know, diligent and knowledgeable, and then also being courteous and respectful and interested in developing relationships. I think they're important in every single one of those positions, you know, whether you're in private practice or you're a prosecutor or a judge. More gets done is just a reflection over the years -- it's probably something I didn't have day one where I relied on the law -- more gets done by good lawyers who have good relationships with people who are trusted, who are found to be solid and who are respectful.  And that -- that sort of the component that changes the synergy is tremendously different when you have that trust and that reputation and that relationship between other people.  That's how things get done efficiently and fairly, not just efficiently. So that's a constant.  And I think every single job I had reinforced that fact that developing a reputation as being reliable and trustworthy and developing relationships with people was one of the most valuable traits you could have as a lawyer.  I think as I went along the path, I would say patience became more and more and more important.  To be a judge was -- to be patient as a judge was even more important than to be patient as a prosecutor because people deserved their day in court.  And even if you think you know where the case is going or you think you know where the argument's gonna end or you've heard it a million times, people deserve their day in court.  So I think there's a weighting in favor of listening and patience as the years went by.

Q   Were you involved in any professional organizations?

A   I -- both in Columbia County and somewhat less in Dane County.  In Columbia County and, well, in Dane County I was always involved in the DA's Office.  I think I was on the board both the times when I was in Columbia County and in Dane County.  And that was really a fundamental organization for me both in terms of education and in terms of my concern about the state of prosecution in the state of Wisconsin.  It was the organization.

But in terms of local bar associations, I'd say my relationships were more tangential.  I tended to like being on the program committee.  And I would talk if asked to talk or be part of panels.  But I wasn't terribly active.

Q   It sounds like you had plenty to keep you busy.

A   I did a fair amount of teaching as part of the DA's Office and somewhat also in the judicial circles occasionally.  But those were the primary organizations.

Q   Any, like, pro bono --

A   I did some.

Q   -- involvement or anything like that you want to tell me about?

A   I did some pro bono work when I was in private practice, and I learned it was really frustrating.  I did a fair amount of, like, child custody cases I think back in Columbia County, but I found it incredibly difficult.  And maybe it's because the people were having -- there was so much strain in their lives to begin with.  But I found it very difficult to manage those cases.  I found the clients to be difficult and not particularly businesslike, I guess I would say, or organized, and very demanding. So I did it.  But I credit people who do it, who do a great deal of it over the years tremendously because it's not easy.

Q   What did you enjoy most about being a lawyer?

A   Oh, there are so many things that were really great.  I think one of the -- one of the most enjoyable things was that you were called on to learn things.  You went into a new kind of case and you had to learn the underlying subject matter.  You had to learn about that world.  It let me delve into whether it was, like, academia in the cases involving the University of Wisconsin, and then I'd be in prisons, and then I'd be in the construction world, and then I'd be in the world of, you know, homicides with forensic evidence and circumstantial cases and the crime laboratory.  So I always found that -- I always found the learning of subject -- the subject matter learning to be absolutely fascinating and connections with people of other walks of life to be absolutely fascinating.  I really loved working on trial teams.  And I loved working I think on any kind of a small team.  The combination of, you know, a good paralegal and a good chief investigator and a prosecutor and maybe a second-chair prosecutor was just -- was just tremendously fun to be successful as a team.  And that's something people don't often think of lawyers as being parts of teams.  But it really was tremendously enjoyable.  I think likewise, as a judge, there were times when three or four judges take on subject matter or things like the new courthouse, working with other judges to be part of the team of judges trying to communicate the importance, the needs of a new courthouse and to win people over to that, but not obviously as a sole person, but as part of a team of other people.  I really loved that.  There's nothing like doing something together and achieving something. It's way beyond what a single person could achieve.  So I think that those two things come back overand over again, being wowed by really good lawyers.

Q   Any low lights that we haven't touched on?

A   Oh, repetition.  I think the hardest thing is the degree of repetition, you know, especially as a circuit court judge, especially in the misdemeanor world or the traffic world where many, many, many, many cases, many, many similar cases, many, many, many plea agreements in one day over and over again, saying the same words, trying to stay alert and make certain that you're not this automaton.  I think it was hard for all -- I know it was hard for my fellow judges, and it was hard for me too.

Q   It's funny you should mention that.  I've often wondered about that.

A   It's difficult.  Bad lawyers.  Bad lawyers really try your patience.  And more than that you worry about the concern about the client who's not well served and the fact that it's not your role to fix things.  That's difficult.

Q   Well, looking back over your entire law career, what do you see as the most significant changes over the years?  Like, do you see any legal developments?

A   Well, one thing that comes to mind is I think that there's -- I think of it because I think of myself as a trial lawyer.  There are fewer trials, particularly civil trials.  I think the world of mediation has gone from a kind of a side technique or a side activity to a primary activity now.  I don't think -- I think the risks of trial are well understood.  The expenses of trial are well understood.  The values of mediation are well understood.  And that's changed.  In the civil world, at least, it's changed the business of lawyering tremendously.  So that's one area.  I think in terms of the courts, it's a much more I hate to say partisan world, but it's a political world that there is -- particularly in the Supreme Court level and the upper courts levels, it's much more money, much more partisan, and much higher profile where by way of designation or expectation somebody's going to be a liberal judge or a conservative judge and going to be friendly to certain issues and hostile to other issues.  So I think that was less so when I started.  I think there was much less interest, but a much greater expectation that judges would be independent.  And the question was were they a good lawyer who had good relationships with other lawyers and had proved them to be a solid person, a clear thinker, an articulate person, someone who would do the job to the very best of their ability, much more -- much less political than now.

Q   Do you get a sense that people are not as anxious to become judges as they used to be?  Or has it always been about the same?

A   You know, I don't know.  I don't know.  Every time a position opens on at least -- I think there are people who would not run for the high court who might have run for the high court before because of politics of the high court nowadays.  However, when it comes to the circuit court, I'm not sure about that because very good lawyers are still expressing interest in it.  So I'm not sure that that's changed.  I'm glad to say that.

Q   What about technology, you know, changing from your first little private office above the hardware store?

A   You know, I can't even remember.  I think we were typing with carbons in my first little office and Xerox machines.  And it's just changed enormously.

I think the worst thing -- the best thing about it, of course, is that we'd be much more efficient, and we can be much more efficient and much more legible like that.  The worst thing is maybe that papers can get longer and longer and longer and fonts can get smaller and smaller.  All in all, it's a good thing for law, more good than bad.

Q   That never occurred to me.  It seems to me that briefs have gotten a lot longer, and it could be that technology, actually, because you can edit so much.

A   Right.  And you cut and you paste and you reuse parts, and you don't -- you're not hand-writing it out, right.  So I think things have gotten longer.

Q   Do you think that's better, or not?

A   Generally longer is not good.  I have come, though it's one thing, that if I didn't understand the importance of a brief brief before being a judge, I have -- did learn it as a judge.

Q   What do you think makes a good lawyer?

A   Oh, I think some of the things I was talking about before.  I think the ability to work with the law, to have a sharp, legal mind.  That's somewhat of a gift, but it's also a matter of drive to be excellent, to answer the questions really well, to be -- to have the facts lined up, not loosely, but tightly, to have examined things, to be really solid in your facts and sharp on your law.  But after that, it really comes down to those personal traits of being honest, being trustworthy, being civil, being prepared, all those kind of good Girl Scout, Boy Scout things that make you want to work with someone because it's a stressful world and, um, those are the kind of people who get things done for their clients and for the cause, whatever the cause may be.

Q   What would you want future lawyers to know?

A   It's tremendous -- it's a tremendous power you have being a lawyer.  You know, A, to never underestimate the importance in the power of the law.  You have this incredible ability to work with that, that tool and that power and that, you know, you should always, always be kind of excited and respectful of it.  And I think after that, think about the goal of what you're doing to make it be something of great value to you. And then also remember that people are affected by what you're doing, and this is about people and communities and lives, and be respectful of that.  But a joy of the law, power of the law to enjoy that and value it and say what am I doing with this and then about who's affected and how am I achieving what I want to achieve.  That's it.

Q   Is there anything else that you want to tell me or anything we haven't covered?

A   No.  It's been a great ride.

Q   Yes.  This has been very enjoyable.  I've known you for so many years, and I'm still learning things about you.

A   Yeah.  It's really -- I feel really fortunate.  Again, I think it got me out of my mind and out of my box.  And it's just, it's -- the law does that.  And I think it's a great thing.  And I really wish -- I mean, I wish everyone in every field could have some kind of that experience of having your ideas and notions tested and coming into that notion of I'm going out to a group of strangers and my thinking may not work, you know, so how do I try to really honestly see this with an open mind.  And I think it opens the mind.  I think -- I just think that's enormously valuable.  And the law, maybe science -- I'm sure science does it, peer-reviewed journals.  There are other ways.  But that's really been the greatest thing for me is getting me out of sloppy, lazy, insular thinking.

Q   Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing your experiences with me and with future readers.  We'll have the transcript prepared of this interview and send it to you for proofing before it becomes part of our Oral History Project.

Unless you have something to add, I'll just note the time is now -- I have absolutely no idea.  5:20?

A   5:20.

Q   Okay.  And I will be shutting off the recording.