TERESA KOBELT: Today is January 17, 2017. This is Teresa Kobelt. I'm at the Alicia Ashman Library in Madison, Wisconsin to interview Jack Sweeney 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.  Jack, do I have your permission to record you and have the transcript prepared?

JACK SWEENEY: Yes, you do.

Q           All right. I'd just like to start with some general background information. Can you tell me your name, your address?

A            My name is Jack Sweeney. My wife and I live in Madison. We are a blended family. We have four children. I have two sons, and Jodi has a daughter and a son.

Q           And are you currently working?

A            Um, I am currently on the payroll, but I'm taking sabbatical leave till sometime in February when I will formally retire.

Q           Sweet. So how are you keeping yourself busy?

A            Well, I'm doing nothing. I get up in the morning, have coffee, read the paper. My wife generally works at home, except when she travels. And I continue to go to the health club five to six times a week.

Q           Wow. That's impressive.

A            Well, I'm not looking for anything to do at the moment. There will come a time when I will look for something that really interests me and I think makes a contribution back to our community.

Q           So where were you born?

A            I was born in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. My mother was living in Mineral Point with her family while my dad was in the service during World War II.

Q           When were you born, year?

A            July 11, 1944.

Q           Okay.

A            And we moved to Madison shortly after the war. And I basically grew up in Madison, going to Blessed Sacrament Grade School, Edgewood High School, and then I went off to college. Being Irish Catholic from the Midwest, there was only one place to go. Of course, that was Notre Dame. And when I was about in fifth           grade, I decided that's what I wanted to do. And it worked out. I did go to Notre Dame for my undergraduate degree and then traveled in South America while I was in graduate school studying theology. And I came back to the Midwest in 1968 and –

Q           Let's stop you there. You said you studied theology. What were you thinking of doing back then?

A            Well, I was planning on -- I was in the seminary, and I was planning on being a Catholic priest. After about five years in the seminary, I decided that was not the role I wanted to perform.

Q           How did your family take that?

A            It was very hard because my older brother and I were both in the seminary. And the great dream of Irish Catholic families from grandparents to our parents was to have a priest in the family. We had nine boys, and it appeared very clearly that with the Sixties coming on, none of my siblings would ever think about going               into the seminary. But my older brother and I both left eventually and sought other careers.

Q           So how did you end up going into law?

A            Well, I worked as a teacher in the inner city in Chicago, 1968 through 1970. And I noticed up the street that there was a Legal Aid office in the heart of what is now Bucktown in Chicago. And I decided that I wanted to work at that office and applied to various law schools. And the best one that accepted me was Notre Dame. So I went back there for three more years.

Q           Tell me more about the teaching experience.

A            Well, it was very interesting because I had just come from Latin America and was pretty fluent in Spanish, and most of the kids, probably 80 percent of the kids in my class, were either Mexican or Puerto Rican. And frankly, they were stunned to see a Caucasian who spoke Spanish. But it was very enjoyable. I did things with my kids. I took 'em -- I taught  fifth and sixth grade. I took them to Wrigley Field. We went to Sandburg Village on occasion with another teacher, and she would bring three of her kids, I would bring three of my kids, we'd have dinner and then take them home. And it was very interesting. About six months ago I got an e-mail from one of my students who said, "Are you the Mr. Sweeney that used to teach at St. Marks's School?" And I wrote her back and said yes, I was. And she said, "Well, you know, you told me I could do anything in sixth grade, and I did based on what you told me." And I said, "Linda, you were the smartest kid in the room, even including the teacher." She sent me a picture of her and I at one of her piano concerts. So teaching was probably a six-day-a-week affair for me. I enjoyed the kids.

Q           That had to be so incredibly heartwarming.

A            It was lovely.

Q           What is she doing now?

A            She's a writer. She lives in Evanston. And I don't know if she's still a piano player. But that was very heartwarming for me to get that e-mail from her.

Q           I'll bet. You must have been very proud.

A            You know, sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

Q           So you went to law school?

A            I went to law school at Notre Dame, basically went there with no money. My first stop was the bank, who gave me a loan. And thank God for the State of Wisconsin, who also gave me a loan.  I found law school very boring. I worked during law school at the Pizza Hut in South Bend. I worked at the dining hall and I worked at a work-study program with Spanish-speaking quasi Legal Aid. During the summer I worked with Michigan Migrant Legal Services and Legal Services in the Muskegon area, both of whom offered me a job upon graduation. But I ended up going to Chicago to work with Legal Aid there.

Q           All right. What was that about?

A            Well, it was about providing low-cost legal services for people who couldn't otherwise afford lawyers. We did a lot of landlord-tenant, consumer. We did a lot of class actions. And the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago is really a wonderful organization, and I'm still in contact with them today. And we've placed a few Notre Dame law students to work there in the summertime. So it was frankly the funnest job I've ever had because we were out doing some community organizing. We had rent strikes. We had jury trials. And litigating in Chicago is a very interesting way to practice law.

Q           So what time frame are we talking about, and how long did you do that?

A            I went to law school in '70, graduated in '73. And I worked with Legal Assistance on the near north side of Chicago from '73 to '76, after which time I went to work for the Litigation Center of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We traveled around the Midwest and sued employers for employment discrimination. In those days, there were no provisions for attorney's fees, Title VII, the discrimination law, so no private attorneys got in it. Once the law was amended to provide for attorney's fees, a lot of attorneys fortunately jumped in and filed lawsuits. I worked with EEOC for three more years, and during which time we had a child. And the idea then was to somehow get back to Wisconsin. So we came back to Wisconsin in 1979 after living on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, which was quite nice, and I got a job with the Attorney General doing civil litigation. I worked there for eight years, and -- I worked there eight years doing civil litigation, a lot of jury trials and primarily in the area of civil rights and employment discrimination. But I handled just about everything that came in the civil area.

Q           So let's talk about those first few years when you were at DOJ. You were working you said civil rights. Were there any cases that are kind of memorable for you?

A            Frankly, they all were. It's very hard to pick out any one case. But I can remember class action suits involving inmates, several arguments in the Seventh Circuit, and one petition to the U.S. Supreme Court which fortunately the Court did not take the case because I had won at the local level.

In 1987 I went to work with a private law firm, Melli Walker Pease & Ruhly, which was frankly just wonderful. The people were delightful. And obviously, I've been working with people from the Melli Walker firm from 1987 up until the time Joe Melli died a couple years ago.

In the meantime, I had run for Dane County Circuit Court judge on two occasions, and apparently the people in my community did not want me as a judge 'cause I lost both of them. But frankly, my legal career worked out very well.

 After Melli Walker, I went back to DOJ because they were the only entity that was doing jury trials in federal court. And I went back there in 1999, so I've been back 17 years. And frankly, every place I've been, whether it's Legal Services, EEOC, DOJ, or Melli Walker, all of those were wonderful experiences. I had the chance to        work with wonderful lawyers and wonderful people. So I'm very grateful the way things have worked out.

Q           I seem to recall that you had a jury trial here in Madison with a very unique juror.

A            Yes. In fact, that was with your former firm, Tom Haley and Kevin Palmersheim. And we had a civil case involving -- I was representing a large corporation,        and Tom and Kevin were representing a couple employees, and it was over severance pay. And my client was the Yellow Pages from Texas. And during the voir dire of the jury, we found out that the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Shirley Abrahamson, was on the jury. And I kept waiting for Kevin and Tom to strike her. And when they didn't, I did not because I needed an intelligent person on the jury to understand what our defense was. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Tom and Kevin won the case. And the Chief Justice was very gracious to both Tom, Kevin and me, telling us both -- telling us all that we tried a very good case.

Q           So did you -- did it change at all your presentation or anything about the trial knowing that Justice Abrahamson was on the jury?

A            No, I don't think it did. We each had our case kind of locked in. And after we had chosen the jury, the presiding judge, Bob –

Q           -- DeChambeau?

A            -- DeChambeau said, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going home to do my homework," because the Chief Justice is on the jury.

Q           And if I recall correctly, she did not become foreperson.

A            No. She was not the foreperson. I don't know who it was, but --

Q           I thought that was interesting.

A            It was. I suspect the Chief Justice decided, no, it was somebody else's role at that time.

Q           Wow. Let's see. I'm looking at my list here.

Now, you've been involved in a lot of professional organizations, I know certainly the Dane County Bar, and we'll get to that in a moment.

Did you ever serve on any committees or leadership roles with the State Bar?

A            No. I haven't been active with the State Bar other than the time I was Dane County Bar President, I think I attended just about every meeting that was held in Madison because I kind of felt I was a coordinator with the Dane County Bar to the State Bar.

Q           Okay. And I guess I should have stopped a little bit before this and just said are there other moments in your career that kind of stand out to you? We talked about this trial with the Yellow Pages and Justice Abrahamson being on your jury. So are there other cases that you found interesting?

A            Well, I remember cases from Chicago particularly because of the unique judicial system where every judge, once they find out you went to Notre Dame, wants you to come back in chambers and chat about Notre Dame.  But I can remember one case in which the tenant had the front door taken off by the landlord, and we had to file a case in court in order to get the landlord to put the front door back. And that was his way of evicting the tenant.

Q           Wow. What time of year did he do that?

A            I think it was in the wintertime. And things just operate very differently in Chicago, where that would be unheard of in Madison or probably Wisconsin. But in Chicago, things were different.

Q           Let's get back to the Dane County Bar Association.  It's no secret that you've been very active with that. So do you want to talk to us about the Bar?

A            Well, I think in terms of highlights during the time that I've practiced law, my involvement with the Dane County Bar was probably a high point. I started when I was initially at DOJ, and I served on a number of committees. And then when I went to private practice, I continued being involved in the Dane County Bar, and also with DOJ the second time. Frankly, it's been, as I said, one of the highlights during the time I've practiced law, particularly with the mentoring program, and primarily to see the young people, the young lawyers, come in and become very active in the Bar, the Dane County Bar, which really does good things in the Dane County community. And I think I've served on the board of directors for about 25 years along with Kathleen Quinlan and David Friedman and Ruth Westmont. They've all been great workers on the Bar.

And the young people now today are coming up and taking over those roles. Josh Kindkeppel has done the mentoring program for ten years, and I think that is probably one of the most important things that I've seen the Dane County Bar do in the years I've been involved.

Q           Are there any other organizations -- well, let's start with legal organizations -- that you've been involved with?

A            Well, I think the Dane County Bar kind of has said it while I was in Madison. In Chicago I belonged to a number of legal organizations, and we did poll watching; we did bail hearings on Sunday morning down at what's called 26th and California.

As I said, I haven't been involved in the State Bar except for the year that I was president. And I've kind of directed my efforts to the Dane County Bar. Frankly, I'm glad I did. And although I'm about to retire from the Department of Justice, I plan to continue working with the mentorship program with Josh and others because I think it's a really wonderful program.

Q           What about outside of the legal community?

A            Well, I've done a number of volunteer things over the years from Cancer Society, I was president of the Dane County portion of the Cancer Society for a couple years during a time when my father had cancer. And I've worked with groups, Child Abuse Prevention on the east side. And let's see. I served on the board of directors at Edgewood High School when my older son was there, and I worked there for four years.  But I think the thing I want to look at and emphasize and continue to spend my time with is the Dane County Bar Association.

Q           It is a good group of people.

A            Yeah.

Q           What did you enjoy most about being a lawyer?

A            I think the interaction with people. Every day a new person would walk in the office in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Madison. And every case was, you know, very different. And the people were, frankly, very kind.  And I think I had a good interaction with clients who didn't speak English.

I remember -- one story I remember is I had a client in Chicago, they were part of what's called the travelers. They were gypsies. And they could not get public assistance because they didn't have any home address. I don't remember exactly what we did, but we were able to do something to allow that gypsy community, whether you agree or don't agree, to get some public assistance while they were in the Chicago area.

Q           Are there any judges that stand out, either good or bad or ridiculous?

A            As you know, I think the quality of judging in Dane County is excellent. The state court judges are patient, hard-working and just very enjoyable to be in front of. And in federal court, of course, Barbara Crabb stands out most in my mind. I tried a lot of cases with her and Judge Shabaz.  And I've tried cases with the new judges here. And I think one of my favorite judges of all times is Barbara Crabb. And I think a lot of people share that opinion.

Q           What do you least like about practicing law, or what did you find frustrating?

A            When I was in private practice, timekeeping was a pai in the neck. Um, but as I said, I didn't consider what I did work because I was working with nice people. And I worked in collaborative situations, whether with Legal Aid, EEOC, or DOJ or Melli Walker.  And frankly, everyone worked together. Even in private practice, there was no competition for clients.

But I didn't like keeping time. And one of the reliefs when I went to DOJ, both the first and the second time, is I didn't have to keep a minute-by-minute tally, as you know, which is what you do with private practice.

Q           I didn't know that. They don't have you track your time and what you're working on?

A            There are very few assistant attorney generals who track their time, and that's only in cases which they bill back to the agency. But the general litigation, the civil litigation I did, I did not have to keep time, although I think there was a brief period of time when the Attorney General did that. But for the most part, we don't do that.

Q           Sweet. Thinking back over your career, what do you see as the most significant changes in the practice of law?

A            Well, as you know, technology has taken over in the practice of law also. And I didn't grow up with technology, so I found that a little difficult, although every place we've been there's been a great support group. And it's -- the practice of law I think is becoming more and more selective in terms of the number of lawyers who are going to be hired, the number of lawyers who are going to make a lot of money. And it's changed a great deal. And I wonder, what will it be like five years from now? I definitely will not be practicing. But I look at these young folks and hope they don't burn out, hope they continue to do quality work and, at the same time, giving back to the community.

Q           Do you think that there's a shift toward making a lot of what lawyers do almost obsolete?

A            Well, I think there's always going to be a need for the human contact that you don't get through e-mail, you don't get through fax. When you get in lawsuit situations, the individuals who are involved need that person-to-person contact with a lawyer in whom they have confidence and can rely on in the difficult 15 moments in litigation.  Technology will continue to do more and more, I think, but I don't think you can replace that human contact, that hand on the shoulder that says it'll be okay, we'll get through this.

Q           What about developments in the law? You had done, it sounds like, some civil rights work, or you did a lot of landlord-tenant, and even at the DOJ. How do you think the law has changed in the last 30, 40 years?

A            Well, 40 years ago, tenants had no rights, inmates had no rights. If you were a female working in an office and you got fired, that was too bad. But it happened a lot. And if you were African American and were fired, you basically had no recourse until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which really didn't go into effect -- take practical effect till the early Seventies.

Q           Do you think there's any chance that those laws will be ruled back?

A            Well, we will find out starting Friday of this week. With a new president, it's always difficult to understand. And with this current president-elect, it's a crap shoot as to what's going to happen. But his track record thus far has not been in favor of equal rights for everyone. But we will see.

Q           In looking at all the different areas that you've worked in and also, I think, in combination with your mentorship program that you've been very involved in, what do you think it takes to be a good lawyer? What makes a good lawyer?

A            Well, I think a good lawyer is the same as a good doctor, a good accountant, a good friend. You have to establish a sense of confidence, that your client has confidence in you because there are crucial moments in litigation or just simple advice where you have to rely on the lawyer. So hard work, being trustworthy, keeping your word and being pleasant, and understanding that the case is not about you, it's about the client.

Q           What would you most want future lawyers to know?

A            Frankly, it's not about them. And you don't have to be tough. You just have to be competent, do your homework, give -- realize that there's a person sitting in the chair next to you who is looking to you for advice and competent representation.

Q           You've probably practiced all over the state of  Wisconsin?

A            I have.

Q           Do you find there's a difference in collegiality or the way trials are run between Dane County and other counties?

A            Yes. The answer simply is yes. I've said for 25 years that there's no better place to practice law than Dane County.  As you said, I've practiced in Chicago, Milwaukee, and throughout the Midwest. And the people in Dane County, the lawyers in Dane County, when they drop the puck, they fight like crazy. They do everything within bounds to help their client, if they can. When the whistle blows, they're collegial. I have several friends who I fought with for 25 years, but they're friends. Trials are different in -- I have a lot of confidence in the judges here in Dane County.

When we travel to Milwaukee or various other parts of the state, it's interesting. We are, from the Department of Justice, we are the so-called "problem from Madison." We are the bad guys from Madison. And Wisconsin generally has very good judges. I think nobody surpasses Dane County, both in the state and 8 federal court.

Q           Has it ever been difficult because of different, just the regular rules, even the local rules or just by branch they have their different rules? Does it become challenging to go into some of the smaller counties and have to try to figure it out all over again?

A            Well, that's part of doing your homework. I've been blessed wherever I have been that I have great support network. And one of the first things that we look at when we're in a state court in northern Wisconsin or federal court in some other state are the local rules. And that's just one of the steps that the support staff does and puts it on the lawyer's desk.

Q           Anything else that you wanted to cover today?

A            Well, I guess I would say in retrospect, I think I've been blessed in the four different organizations, groups, law firms that I've worked with. I've worked with wonderful, intelligent and kind people.

Legal Services was a real trip, very enjoyable. I also worked with, I think I told you, the migrants in Michigan where we had, you know, migrants living in our farmhouse. We picked them up from the side of the road. And there are a lot of -- I like to think that there are a lot of people at the side of the road that I've been a part of helping over the last 45 years.

Q           That's a very nice of way of putting it.  All right. Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing your experiences with me and with future readers. We'll have a transcript prepared of this interview and send it to you for proof before it becomes part of our Oral History Project. Unless you have something to add, I'll just note the time is -- I have no idea.

A            Well, I think, Teresa, I'd like to thank you and the other members of the Dane County Bar and the History and Memorial section for taking the time and the effort to, I guess, preserve the history of lawyering and the law in Dane County.

Q           The stories and the interviews have been fantastic, much better, far more interesting than I think they expected when we first started the project. So we've enjoyed it tremendously.

A            Good.

Q           Thank you.