Edward Reisner:

Today is the 9th of May, 2023. I'm Edward Reisner. I'm at the offices of Foley and Lardner in Madison to interview David G. Walsh as part of the oral history project of the Dane County Bar.

David Walsh: Can I ask a question?

Edward Reisner: Sure. You want me to stop?

David Walsh: Yep. Or later.

Edward Reisner: This is part of the Dane County Bar's oral history project. And do I have your permission to record this today?

David Walsh: Yes, you do.

Edward Reisner: Thank you. David, what's your full name?

David Walsh: David G. Walsh.

Edward Reisner: And you live here in Madison?

David Walsh: I live in at [REDACTED] in the village of Maple Bluff. Have lived in Madison Maple Bluff my whole life.

Edward Reisner: So you were born in Madison?

David Walsh: Born in 1943.

Edward Reisner: During World War II?

David Walsh: Yes.

Edward Reisner: I know a little bit about your father because first of all, I read David Marinas' book about the boxing history at Wisconsin, but he was a University of Wisconsin Law School grad, and that's where I worked for many years. Tell me about your family.

David Walsh: Well, my father has an interesting background to get here. He was a world-class amateur boxer and a national champion. And he was the coach at the age of 20 years old of the St. Thomas College boxing team, which was a small college back then. And they came down to Madison to fight the Badgers who were thought to be one of the better teams and they tied. But the point of interest to everyone was that my father fought the national champ from Wisconsin.

And I remember reading the coverage of it and it basically said that Wisconsin's hero had been taught a boxing lesson and everyone was happy that he didn't hurt him because he was clearly a better fighter. And because of that, they asked him if he would coach the team, the Wisconsin team. He was only 20 and he said, "No, I'm going to law school at St. Thomas."

When they got back to St. Thomas and they closed the law school, this was during the depression, this was 1931, '32, and he called them up and said, "Can I take that job? And I want you to put me through law school. I'd like to." And they said, "Yes, we will." And they said, "But we have to charge you out of state tuition because we don't know if you'll be a good coach and you'll last."

And the out-of-state tuition was $80 instead of I think 10. And he lasted. They won nine National Champions, eight National Champions, 35 individual champions, and the National Trophy was named after him. He went to law school, became a lawyer, and his law practice got too big and he had to retire as a coach. In between he was in the Marines at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the war. And he was an Olympic coach too.

Edward Reisner: If I remember correctly, he retired as coach about 1958.

David Walsh: Correct. '58.

Edward Reisner: You overlapped his time as coach. I know you've been interested in sports, had been involved in sports, was your father's experience something that led you to your interests?

David Walsh: Yes. We were very active, the family. My brother was a state ranked wrestler and state tennis champion, city tennis champion. I was a boxer, but they stopped the sport in '61. But right before I went to college, they had a tragedy. A fighter had died. And in fact, they stopped the sport all over the country because Wisconsin supported everyone.

We had full house and we earned a lot of money here and shared it. And so boxing really kind of fell by the wayside. Then it had also had problems because of segregation and the Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota teams wouldn't put up with segregation. And so the south quit and that was a hotbed. And then it ended up out west and it's still fought out west in a couple schools, San Jose, Sacramento, but it stopped really in '61 and that was the end.

Edward Reisner: You mentioned a brother. Tell me about your family.

David Walsh: Well, I have a brother. Both my parents have passed, my mother at the age of 99, dad passed when he was 91 and practiced law until he was 86 right down the hall here. He was famous because often I'd be told there's a man asleep on his couch in there. I said, "Well, he ought to be asleep, he's 85 years old." And so the two of them and my brother John, who was a stockbroker and financial consultant in Madison, he's 83 and lives in Madison. I think I'm probably the only one that left because I went in the Navy and law school.

Edward Reisner: At one point, your father's firm was Walsh, Walsh, Sweeney, and Whitney, and it merged with Foley and Larder at some point?

David Walsh: Yes. We were one of the first to have radio ads. It was Walsh, Walsh, Sweeney, and Whitney, the firm you feel good about. We handed out T-shirts that said, "Have you hugged your lawyer today?"

Edward Reisner: I think I may have had one of those when your father's firm sponsored our softball team.

David Walsh: Yes, probably. But when I started, it was just my father and me. I had a job. I graduated from undergraduate in '65. I had volunteered for the Navy and it was put off, and then I went in the Navy and grew up. That was three years at sea. And then I returned, I'm trying to think back. I decided to go to law school in the Navy. I had volunteered because I didn't like the ship I was on. I didn't like destroyers, they really were rough. And so I volunteered for swift boats and I went to Vietnam in the destroyer, we came back, I got a command of a swift boat, and then I never went because I got into law school.

I had applied to law school. Those are the days that it was tough to get into school and I needed to settle down, I didn't need to keep staying in the Navy. And so I went to Harvard Law School and I graduated in 1970, took a job in Wall Street. But before I went there, I got an offer to clerk on the Supreme Court under Robert Hansen. Wonderful guy. Little conservative for me, but wonderful guy.

Had some wonderful ideas and he was a great guy to work with. I liked it so much in Madison I decided not to leave. I told Sherman and Sterling I wasn't coming. They were very nice about it. I said to my father, "Let's go." We had a great time. It was the two of us. We also shared an office with John Garlock, who my father was with for probably 30 years, sharing offices.

We just had a wonderful time. His boxers would come through, and these guys were well-positioned, number two guy at General Motors, the guy who dropped the hydrogen bomb and bikini, Woody Schwan, two time national champion, doctors, lawyers, firemen, a lot of policemen. And they came through the office and they were always checking on the coach. They were great clients and we had a wonderful time.

I just read in the paper the other day, one of them died. He was a great guy from Tomah and I didn't know it, he got a PhD in agriculture and he used to bring us beef and meat. We didn't get paid in dollars. I never did find out if we paid taxes on it, but it was a great time because these people were fun to work for.

Edward Reisner: We'll get into your legal experience in a few moments, but I know you're retired now. When did you retire?

David Walsh: Well, don't talk to my wife. I retired 13 years ago, but I've been in the office probably every day. I'm in Madison and I still am a trustee for some fairly significant families and estates. And then I also, I have a son who's a lawyer and I do things with him. He's with another law firm, but I haven't really retired. And Foley's been wonderful. They've given me an office of staff and other lawyers. I don't bill, I haven't sent a bill in 13 years and I retired. I have other businesses that I'm involved in.

Edward Reisner: So you're keeping busy?

David Walsh: I'm very busy. It's busier than ever.

Edward Reisner: I often wonder how I got anything done while I was working because I seem to be filling all my time with post-retirement activities.

David Walsh: That's true. That's good.

Edward Reisner: Your prelegal education, where did you go to grade school?

David Walsh: I went to grade school at Randall School. I could sing a fight song if you'd like.

Edward Reisner: We'll save that for later.

David Walsh: And I lived right up the street because my dad coached and he'd lived on the other side of Randall was the field house. And so we spent a lot of time walking back and forth.

Edward Reisner: How about high school?

David Walsh: West High School, they let me in. They had to, in those days they had to educate you.

Edward Reisner: And your undergraduate degree was from the University of Wisconsin.

David Walsh: I went to University of Wisconsin. And those were the days that you didn't have to qualify. I think I was the last class. I was kind of a laggard, so it was lucky. And I stayed home, went to Wisconsin, and I enjoyed it. It was a great experience. And I got a good education.

Edward Reisner: Law school, went to Harvard.

David Walsh: Three years later. Yes. Two years later.

Edward Reisner: After your experience in the Navy?

David Walsh: Yes.

Edward Reisner: Yes. Harvard is renowned for famous alumni. Were there people in your class that you would point to?

David Walsh: Oh. Yeah, they do have, it's a unique place. It's a big school. By far the biggest law school. I didn't know that when I applied. I actually wanted to go to Stanford, but I couldn't afford it. And I got a loan at Harvard and I had the GI Bill, and it was looking back, I think it was only $2000 tuition, you can imagine. And then I had room and board and I had a job when I was there.

But I had a lot of people. I'll never forget the one guy. He kept borrowing my notes and I later found out that he gave the Harvard undergraduate valedictorian address in Latin. His name was Bill Weld, and he was a real interesting guy. I don't think I ever saw him in class. He eventually became the governor of Massachusetts. And I'm thinking he was a Republican and then a US attorney, and he was going to be the envoy of Mexico.

And then he recently ran for president as an independent when Trump won. And we had guys like Bruce Wasserstein, who since passed away, the beginning of private equity, difficult guy. I sat near him. I don't even remember him saying a thing in school. He had resources and he started in the private equity business, and I understand was fairly successful.

It was Wasserstein and Perella, and there were a couple of guys who were United States senators, and I'm just, oh, I should know, I spent a lot of time with them. I'm just going to blank. Bruce Presla, South Dakota. He went in the Navy. He went in the service and came through Madison and asked me if I'd loan him some money. And I said, "Sure." And he got home and called me and said, "I'm running for a Congress, because that's how you become a senator."

They only have one congressman. And he ran, he was a Rhodes scholar and he ran, and he's the guy, he was senator for two terms who blew up Abscam. If you recall, that the FBI was trying to beat a lot of politicians. And he reported them. He said, "Well, you just reported the FBI on themselves." And then he lost the senators and then he ran for president and then he ran again and lost.

I don't know where he is now. Nice guy. And there were a couple other senators. There's some scaliwags too.

Edward Reisner: I think every law school generates a few of those.

David Walsh: You've got to keep your value system and money's pretty corruptive.

Edward Reisner: Well, you described coming out of law school, clerking for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then joining your father in practice. One of the things that our members seem to enjoy as people talking about what the practice was like when you started, that would've been 1960.

David Walsh: '70.

Edward Reisner: 1970, as contrasted to what it is today. Can you make any comments about those?

David Walsh: Well, never asked me that question because I'm full of ideas. But, like any business, things change, technology, people, I'm not sure for the better. I look back and remember and have to remind myself, I was young, I was pretty immature about things. I was a bit of a rounder.

I was fortunate to have a good education. And that was primarily because I remember being over in Vietnam and I said, "I'm going to law school." So I studied for the bar or the LSATs, and I memorized the whole book. And I tell you, it was a very simple test if you spend as much time as I did, because I had nothing to do, but sit up and wait to fire our guns and sleep and read.

So I had a good education. I came back here and even though I had a good job on Wall Street with Sherman and Sterling, biggest firm in the country, and I was in securities, which I had a special interest in, I majored in finance and accounting, I was angry and I was angry because of the Vietnam War.

I was the intelligence officer on a destroyer, and I saw a lot of what I thought was misrepresentation of the reality of what was going on. And I volunteered. It wasn't like I was trying to get out of it, and I volunteered to go back. But the government was really disappointing. And actually, I didn't get court-marshaled, I got disciplined because I complained about what was happening.

One of the things that happened is in the Philippines, we were involved with going after what was, I forgot what they called them, but it was a communist. They got run out. They were rebels, and I thought we mistreated them. In fact, we killed two people. So I filed a paper, and next thing I know, I was told I had to stay on the ship for 50 days.

This is after being at sea for about 70. So I spent a lot of time on the ship, but it reminded me how important it was to complain. And then when I got out of the service, those were bad days back then. That was what-

Edward Reisner: I was on campus here.

David Walsh: Well, in 1970 was Sterling Hall.

Edward Reisner: Sterling Hall.

David Walsh: And I was studying for the bar. But even back at Harvard, they were thrown, those Irish cops loved to throw their tear gas into our dorms. We all lived in dorms. But I remember thinking how ugly it was and how both sides weren't telling the truth. I marched on Washington at Kent State. Remember Kent State? They shot seven people. Can you imagine shooting guns at students? And the irony of it was it, for my career, the first set of exams I had was when they assassinated Martin Luther King, and the spring vacation.

We had one test all year. The next set was Bobby Kennedy's assassination in June of '70, I think. Well, it would've been-

Edward Reisner: I think it was '69.

David Walsh: '68.

Edward Reisner: '68?

David Walsh: Yeah, because it was the election of '68. So, each year I had an assassination. And I always thought the government just, I wasn't a rabid guy about it, I just thought what was right and wrong. And it was clear to me that the government wasn't telling the truth. Forget what I knew about the war and what we were saying.

That was war and people were dying. So it was a different time. So during those times, I really changed and I actually started working pretty hard. And so I decided to come back and work with my father, who was a wonderful guy, wonderful, calm, never got angry. I remember a time there was a lawyer named Richard Howpin. Did you ever hear of him?

Edward Reisner: Yes.

David Walsh: Over in the courtroom, and my dad used to babysit for Richard. We were friends of his parents. And something happened. It was a small case, and my dad was trying it, and he got up and Richard said, "You're over the hill, Walsh. You're X years old." And he says, "You're a bum and you shouldn't be practicing law."

So my father kind of calmly stood up and Judge Torphy was the judge, and he started yelling, Richard did, as he often did, "The man's a trained killer. His hands are lethal weapons. He's coming after me. Call the bailiff." And Judge Torphyy said to him, "You're lucky he doesn't just kill you." He says, "Sit down, Richard. I dismiss this case." I always remember that. And that was part of being in Madison and it was fun. So coming back here was a lot of fun to practice law.

Edward Reisner: You mentioned that you are still a trustee on some estates, and I know that you have an expertise in estate planning. Is that something that started at the very beginning?

David Walsh: Well, my dad had a big practice in estate planning, and he was close to a lot of families that grew and wealth was developed. And over the years, that was probably the main income stream for him. And then I became the heir of that. But when I got to Foley, we have a team here. I didn't do the technical work, but I do a lot of the planning and I just have a close relationship with a lot of families.

And again, I don't bill them so much. I'm paid a trustee fee for a couple, more than enough. And I often, I don't care. I just like some of these people who are remarkable people and I owe it to them because they trusted me. But my practice started off because the other reason I came back here was I was interested in other businesses starting up and we started the cable television industry.

Edward Reisner: I was going to get to that. Yes.

David Walsh: And I'll never forget it. My dad said, "Come on, we're going to a small town." I think it was Dodgeville, small to me then, tonight. And we got in the car. I didn't really know where we were going. He probably was keeping me out of trouble. And I was single. And we drove down there and he appeared and talked to the town about cable television.

This was when I was actually clerking. I wasn't working here. I decided to clerk here my senior year. I had worked in the SCC in my first year in law school. And he was introducing cable television to these small towns through with a guy named Jim Fitzgerald, who later became my mentor. And Jim had started in Janesville. Jim later owned the Milwaukee Bucks and the Golden State Warriors. Wonderful guy. Died too young.

And he and I traveled the state getting franchises. But in between, I was still a year left at Harvard, and to graduate from Harvard Law School, you need to write a paper that's publishable. And I wrote a paper on the history and future of regulating cable television. And I did it primarily because I knew that I knew more than anybody because it had just started. And I knew I could easily write a paper.

I always remember thinking that was a cowards way out. And it eventually was a blur of your article. And Marquette printed it, and everybody thought I was an expert in the cable television. The truth was, the only expertise was the history I wrote. And I didn't know anything much more than anybody. But from that, I started going around the state and I developed a relationship with all the city attorneys.

And frankly, I knew they knew nothing about it. And I felt that I had to help them. And so I would always be their resource. And over the years, I'd say that supported three lawyers. They'd called me about, we've got this civil rights problem here and we trusted each other. And I always did it to help them and in time, but quite often they hired us. And it all came because that trip to Dodgeville and my writing of paper, that really wasn't that brilliant, it was just the only one.

Edward Reisner: I think I will make an attempt to find the article in the Marquette Law Review and read it, particularly in light of developments, just ongoing developments now and you begin to see articles titled, is this the end of cable television with the over bear of digital.

David Walsh: The name of the article, which was even sillier, was “Let the Cables Grow.” And I had a professor at the law school who said, "God, you sound like all these crazy liberals?" He says, "Let the cables grow. It's not a biblical fight." And he said, "I'll still give you a passing grade."

Edward Reisner: Were you involved with the start of cable television in Madison when it was a municipal-

David Walsh: Yes.

Edward Reisner: Was it city owned?

David Walsh: No, we owned it.

Edward Reisner: You did?

David Walsh: My father and I did with Fitzgerald. It was never city, although they tried to take it from us. We eventually sold it to Telecommunications Inc. Who then sold it on to somebody else in Charter, eventually ended up with it. And TCI, Telecommunications Inc and Charter were my biggest clients, but I worked for them all over the Midwest. And that's what caused me to merge with Foley.

We couldn't handle it anymore. We needed more lawyers. And I also was still very interested in educational law in the university. And at that time, I started working with the medical school because our family had some medical challenges, and from there I became much closer to the University. And then when Jim Doyle was elected governor, he put me on the board of Regents. And so we did that for 10 years.

But the cable got me started in a unique area. And I also was an investor. And my father, I always remember this, he said to me one day, “what you do with these cable companies is we didn't have the money to build them, keep building them,” we'd build them and sell them. And there were some people out east who thought they could make all sorts of money. So we really pumped the price up.

And the first company we sold, my father said, "That's not really your money." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "We were lucky here, and it all started because of this and that." So we started the foundation with it. He took my money. It wasn't all that much, but it grew. That was 30 years ago. And now we combine it with another foundation, and we're probably the biggest donors to the medical school.

And then we have a scholarship in his name at the law school. Anybody who gets a letter in intercollegiate sports will get, I think we give 50000 a year away from the foundation to law students.

Edward Reisner: My experience is much smaller than that. But when I retired, I established a scholarship at the law school in my parents' name.

David Walsh: Oh, good.

Edward Reisner: When I went to law school, I think the last year the tuition was a thousand dollars.

David Walsh: When did you graduate?

Edward Reisner: '72. 1972. And other than working in construction in the summers, my parents funded my education. So I'm really proud that somebody's now-

David Walsh: Oh, that's good.

Edward Reisner: ... is getting some money from that investment.

David Walsh: Well, we need to support that school more. Just an aside, that's my school. I don't give anything to my law school. They've got enough money. And besides that, I don't like what they're doing in terms of charging kids to go to school. But here, we just don't get the bar to support this school enough. I'm just flabbergasted. But I consider it my school. My father went here, took him five years because he worked full-time. And my son went here, and that was tough.

Edward Reisner: I retired in 19, or excuse me, 2005 and tuition was something 10, $12000 a year for residents. I looked the other day, and it's now over 30,000 for residents and $47,000 a year for non-residents.

David Walsh: Oh, that's crazy.

Edward Reisner: Flabbergasted me.

David Walsh: I didn't know that.

Edward Reisner: I helped my daughters, my two daughters go through school and I kept track of how much I spent. And now I'm glad neither of them went to law school.

David Walsh: It's really amazing what things cost.

Edward Reisner: There's another aspect of your professional career that fascinates me. And that's your involvement with sports law, both teams and individuals. And I can see how the individuals probably started with your father and the people you said who came through the office to see him.

David Walsh: And what's interesting, my father was the first person I knew that got paid to represent something. He was Alan Ameche's lawyer, Heisman Trophy winner from Wisconsin.

Edward Reisner: Kenosha.

David Walsh: And Kenosha, and with Barna Figlio and Eddie Hart. And they became close friends, of course, but I remember him coming home. He'd signed the contract and it was really difficult, they said, my father. And I said, "Well, how much did you get for them?" And he said, "Well, I didn't get that much, but I got a no cut contract."

Nobody had ever got a no cut contract. I said, "What's does that mean in terms of the advantage?" He says, "Well, these guys break their legs and they get hurt and they get cut and they don't get anything." But they couldn't cut him for two years. I said, "Well, how much money did you get them?" $14,000.

That was his first year contract, and it was the first one to ever get a no cut. And obviously things changed. And I did maybe 10 contracts. We were getting 60,000 for anybody who wasn't drafted. And they give us, in those days, they gave us a chart of all the centers and they said, if you're a center, and then they went down the other side of the chart and where the rounds were, they told us what they had paid. They didn't negotiate. There was no negotiation.

This was the worst antitrust I'd ever seen. We complained, but it was early in the, this was before Bart Star. No, excuse me. It would've been in '74 that I started, and I had a lot of Wisconsin players. I think the best contract we had was a couple of hundred thousand. But a lot of these kids didn't ever get the money because they got hurt. The life expectancy in the NFL was less than three years.

Edward Reisner: I don't think it's a lot longer than that now.

David Walsh: I don't think so.

Edward Reisner: I think I just saw running backs for five years.

David Walsh: They not only get hurt, they get replaced. So Jim Fitzgerald and I got involved in the Bucks. I made an investment, made no money, and he said, "David, we're giving our Commissioner Stern at the time, we're giving him a big bonus." I said, "Why?" He said, "He just got through the labor agreement." And he said, "We got the team down to 10 players."

I think it ended up at 12. But he said, "You wouldn't know what that means." He says, "Not only do we pay fewer people, but they're scared of losing their jobs because all these kids are coming in from college." And there was a real wave of better players. He said, "We don't have to pay them much anymore." And he later sold the Bucks for 17 million to Kohl, and then he bought-

Edward Reisner: 17 million?

David Walsh: 17 million. Oh, yes. Back in those days we didn't get much. And then he bought the Warriors for 12 from a guy named Mellie. They sold that for 140. Now that's worth probably two billion today. Meantime, I bought the Brewers, no, I didn't buy it, I bought into it. My father-in-law had bought them from Seattle, Pilots.

Edward Reisner: Pilots, yeah.

David Walsh: And we lost our shirt because we didn't have a contract with the TV, radio. And we lost, I think we paid 15 million, the whole group paid 15 million years later sold it for 130 and in between lost more than that. And the difference was we had to pay the money every year, and then we got it at the end.

So we didn't make any money. And we were the only ownership that paid for its own tickets. Plus we didn't have a suite. It was a terrible experience.

Edward Reisner: It was County Stadium.

David Walsh: Then when they built the stadium, we did get, and now today it's all about TV and radio. It's got nothing to do with the product on the field. Same with the Big 10 Network.

Edward Reisner: Are you still doing sports law?

David Walsh: I get calls. I don't advise people. No, I'm not interested in getting in agency work. I've been involved with the discussions on NIL name and likeness. This Supreme Court cases, people ought to read it, especially lawyers. The Supreme Court basically said to the NCAA, knock it off, this isn't amateur sports we're trying to save, not when you pay coaches $9 million and chancellors 200,000. There was a nastiness to that decision. And I don't know what'll happen. I really don't. There's so much money involved. The Big 10 Network contract's a billion dollars.

Edward Reisner: And probably going up with new teams coming in.

David Walsh: And I for some reason think we get a hundred million now, and it's doubling. And that was supposed to go to academics. I mean, [inaudible 00:36:15] isn't owned by the athletic department. It's owned by the people of Wisconsin, taxpayers. And we haven't reached that equilibrium as to what to do, because some of the schools you take in Ohio State or in Michigan with all their outside funds, the arms race is terrible.

Now, just the other day, I was with somebody, it was Jim Doyle, and he remarked, and I hadn't thought of this, that do we ever talk about academics for these kids? We've assumed they're not going to finish school. And that was an old argument in the past, and we've kind of forgot. I don't know where it's headed. I really don't. I'm so old now, I sit back and watch it on TV.

Edward Reisner: Two of my colleagues when I worked at the law school were Frank Remington and Walter Dickey. Frank, he was an early riser and so was I, so we would meet over coffee at seven o'clock in the morning, and I'll tell people, I learned more about life and law from Frank Remington between seven and 7:30 than I did the rest of my academic.

David Walsh: He was a wonderful guy. He was. And he was a longtime advisor of the athletic department. And then Walter. Both great people.

Edward Reisner: And I remember Frank talking, he was on the infractions committee for the NC2A, and he seemed to not like Illinois very much. Anyway, every time Illinois came before the infractions committee, Frank wanted to shut them down.

David Walsh: Oh, that's funny. I've got to tell you, so I represented Steve Yoder before the NCAA on just a terrible matter that was trumped-up. And it was all caused by the dislike between, I thought it was David Tar and Shane and the athletic department when they were chancellors. He was a victim of somebody else's.

But Frank and I talked and he'd let me know about some of the things that were going on that day. And I remember I was sitting there with, there was a person from Alabama, Virginia, a little bit more conservative group of representatives. And I said, "And by the way, really, you've got two claims today against the certain school for paying for sexual favors. And you've got two guys who gave 25,000, and you're talking about a coach that loaned money to somebody."

And the guy says, "How do you know that?" And I said, "Was it true?" And the guy from Alabama who they did whatever there, "Mr. Walsh is right," he says, "It's pretty silly that we're talking about Mr. Yoder and a loan when we've got people committed crimes. I moved we dismiss." Dismissed the whole thing. I always thank Frank for letting me know what was going on.

Edward Reisner: So we've covered a lot of your practice. While you were practicing or after you retired, were you involved with professional activities too?

David Walsh: Well, when I retired in 2012, it was official retirement and we have a retirement, and I started taking it. But I had these other businesses. I'm very involved in medical research and primarily in the field of vision. I have two children that are suffered from Usher syndrome, which is retinitis pigmentosa and hearing.

They're both fairly blind. One of them just ran in the Boston Marathon and he's got MS to boot, so he is a fighter. But I started getting much more involved in my businesses and clients' businesses. And the university, primarily the medical school, vision research, and then raising funds. Then at the time, I was on the board of Regents and chair of the hospital. So I was active in that stuff, and that was a wonderful time, fun. The politics of the Board of Regents was sad.

The legislature, with all due respect, one of the great men I know said the problem with the legislature in Wisconsin is they used to have doctors, lawyers, teachers, firemen, but guess what, they'd say, they had other jobs. They couldn't sit around and bitch at each other. They got along and they compromised because they had to go home and work. He said, "Today, full-time legislators are more worried about their per diem and their job." And that's what I observed with the Regents, how they treated the university. They saw it as something to batter, to get some votes.

Edward Reisner: My first four years after I graduated from law school, I worked as a lobbyist for the state bar.

David Walsh: Oh, then you saw.

Edward Reisner: And I saw the transition. They were guys like Harvey Holm and others that-

David Walsh: Hollander.

Edward Reisner: And the farmers who were there in '72, by the time I left in '76, they were basically gone. And they were younger people.

David Walsh: Staffers.

Edward Reisner: Yes. They had nothing else to do, but be a legislator.

David Walsh: And if somebody would wake up and stop paying them so much, we'd go back to getting people who would see it as a volunteered job. When they say they have to go to committee meetings, go to one of their committee meetings, they show up for a quorum and then leave.

Edward Reisner: What would you say is the highlight of your legal career?

David Walsh: Oh, a couple. First of all, starting at a two-person firm and ending up with 1000 lawyers, that evolvement was fun. I kind of grew into various jobs. When I became the head of this firm, we were 70 lawyers, and then I was on the management and I was the head of finance, I got to know something about the practice of law. And I have a lot of other feelings about that because I think it's gone the wrong way.

But there was that, and then the cable television is building an industry, and to show you how smart I am, brilliant, one day a guy came to me and he said, "We've got to put this equipment in your head ends." I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Well, it let's you do the internet." And it cost like 50,000 a head end. And I had small systems, about 30 of them.

I said, "We can't afford that. Who wants to use the internet? What would you do with it?" And the guy tried to explain it, and I said, "I've had it. Let's sell it." So we sold it before the internet arrived. Now the internet is what drives cable television today, shows you how smart I am. But that was exciting and fun. And I met great people, people who worked at night with their hands and in the cold, and we built systems.

I got out there and was driving the truck. Didn't know what the world I was doing. I still don't. So that was great. Then the other thing I liked about my practice was I think we got, for a while, we had the right culture. There was a time where we had meet for lunch, but now with all the technology, people were staring at a screen, they'll go someplace else.

We knew people, I knew their families, and if you had a dispute, guess what? You talked it over. You didn't serve papers on them. That's the part that I enjoyed the most. But we've lost that. And of course, then there's also what I think is the most obscene thing going on, and I don't know the answer, and I feel like the curmudgeon I am, but when I started practicing law, Foley and Lardner at Harvard Law School, had a sign, said, we will match any salary in the country, $15,000. And people thought, who are these people in Milwaukee, Sherman and Sterling and all those, they'd bump it up 500.

So that was at 15,000. So today, starting salary for is 200, 250. Now inflation's only seven and a half times. So what's driving that? Well, I think we've lost our way in terms of why we're doing this. If you don't like practicing law, don't do it. It's not for the money. And you can just see it in the rates people charge.

I mean, I cannot believe a wet behind the ear second year associate that anybody is worth $300 an hour. And what does that mean? It means that we're building a different kind of culture around a service that is probably at the heart of our democracy, fairness and justice and the facts, the truth. It's really troublesome to me. I mean, I love our firm, and I think they've been kind to me, but we're caught in a rat race. And it's not just here. It's everywhere.

The public can't pay those rates unless the public has too much money. And if we're only serving the people with too much money, we've left some pretty important people in the way. That troubles me. So I have these things I love and I appreciate doing. And I look back and it's great, but I worry about the future.

Edward Reisner: I've got to ask, you mentioned medical research and Optic. Are you familiar with, or do you know a lawyer named Michael Price? Michael Price was with the state bar years and years ago. He now ...

David Walsh: Does he have a vision problem?

Edward Reisner: Well, I don't know if he does, but he's involved with treating the people with vision problems in India.

David Walsh: Oh, he goes over, it's called, no, I know it well, combat blindness. And India has this terrible cataract problem. They can do 20 cataract operations a day, and people can see, they couldn't see.

Edward Reisner: The last time I talked to him, he was getting into manufacturing, probably the contact lenses that you need to correct the cataract problem.

David Walsh: Our researchers go over there once a year and they travel around and they all operate. And that was founded by a guy named Shareesh Chaunra. He's retired. He was here and it's called combat blindness. And it actually does operations to help people. Most of my work and my foundation that I spent a lot of time with is called Foundation Fighting Blindness, we fund the research.

Edward Reisner: The research.

David Walsh: We're not operational. We're almost all researchers, PhDs. And the real source here at Wisconsin is called the McPherson Eye Research Institute, Marian, and that's headed by David Gam, and that's who I spent a lot of time with.

Edward Reisner: Well, we've talked about your various expertise areas. We've talked about what you like most about the practice and what you are concerned about as it evolves in the future. Are there any other subjects that you want to cover?

David Walsh: Well, I'm genuinely concerned, as I said, about where we're headed because for instance, the Foley and Lardners of the world in the '70s committed a lot of time to pro bono. But more important, if you're not driven by the calculus of hours and rates and expenses, you're driven by other satisfaction. And I'm genuinely worried that we don't see that anymore anywhere else. The smaller law firms that I deal with, and I mean five people, four people, it's a little bit more about the money than it used to be. The Dane County Bar used to have a wonderful picnic. People got together. No, we don't talk to anyone.

Another concern I have is just this election we recently had, the partisanship of the Supreme Court. And I would go back further. I would say that at some place, well, I guess it's the legislature's fault, back when I started, the judges in Dane County were all practicing attorneys. They had the experience of caring about a person's needs and winning and losing, and knowing how important it was to maintain relationships.

Judge Satchjen, judge Jackman, Torphy really came through the District Attorney's office, I'm just blanking on a couple of them, even Judge Burns, Wilke, all these people practiced law, and they understood what it's like to have a client crying in your office. And then suddenly they all started being government employees or coming through the government district attorney, not the US attorney. And a lot of the judges didn't have that experience. Now, I was on a judicial committee, and I'll never forget it, sitting there with Willie Stafford, one of the great trial lawyers and characters that ever went in a courtroom, head of the Stafford Law Firm.

He said, "The question was, can we pay the judges 32,000?" Well, I'm doing pro bono work or assignment work from the state at 35 bucks an hour. And I'm thinking 32 is a lot of money. And he says, "We pay our guys 35." And he says, "That's why they'll never be judges. They want to make more." And I remember that comment because he was a bit right in that you couldn't get good attorneys to go back into the judgeship.

There's exceptions like Gerry Nichol and people like that who just cared about things. But then we slowly, as the lawyers make more money, it makes it harder to convince people to become judges. And now instead we've got judges or judges, in other words, they start with no experience. They're just a judge. And we should put them on the Supreme Court. The guy I want in the Supreme Court, the woman I want on the Supreme Court is somebody who's tried cases, who's paid the price of defeat, who's been involved in large issues that understands what a summary judgment is, and the finding of fact. I don't want somebody who's got experience as a Circuit Court Judge, but that's where we are.

Edward Reisner: I'm going to bring up one new subject and just see what your reaction is. This morning before I started out, I was reading Isthmus and there was an article in there about someone who was experimenting with Chatbot, the computer program that writes.

David Walsh: Sure.

Edward Reisner: And one of the other members on our Dane County Bar committee just published an article in the Dane County Bar newsletter about her experience. And on the way over, they were talking about the writer's strike and how Hollywood is, the writers are afraid that they're going to lose their jobs to computer programs. It's going to impact the practice of law. We were talking about paying young attorneys $300 an hour. If you can use a free subscription to ChatGPT or whatever it is to do any kind of writing, even if you have to polish it's going to expand.

David Walsh: It's funny you bring it up because the other night I was at a meeting where they were talking about it and I was listening, and then I thought, I remember when my career kind of changed and I was a clerk, so I spent a lot of time at the library and I read cases, and then I learned how to copy. I could write a pretty good brief because I was pretty good at taking those apart.

And I've always thought that this is silly, but I think the lawyers were the first chat boxes. We've been copying and creating artificial intelligence by taking other people's ideas and thoughts and conclusions. And I find it funny because I think chat box will impact the legal profession, and we'll have a hard time justifying what we charge for what somebody can get from chat box. I think it's great. It's knowledge.

Edward Reisner: My last year in law school, I served as a research assistant to John Conway, legendary professor, a reform advisor of statutes in Wisconsin. And he was doing research on land use law. And one of the things he had me do was take every state's statutes and look at the index and see what I could find, what statutes related to land use planning. And it took me half a semester probably to do that. Four years later, I come back to work at the law school. And I had had no experience with Lexus before that. And it suddenly dawned on me that I could have done that research in less than an hour.

David Walsh: That's so true.

Edward Reisner: So maybe it's inevitable that artificial intelligence is going to affect the legal profession, but maybe it's just part of the evolution of the way things go.

David Walsh: That's a good question. Is it part of the evolution? I just remember so many times that if I had a summary judgment case, oh, where's the gouge on the beginning of describing what the standards are? And we'd have it, it'd be four or five pages. And we'd just copy it. And so we were doing that and didn't know we were cheating in that sense, we're cheating our intellect.

The question for me is, if it's so good and I think it'll be really good, what is that going to do? Are we ever going to try to change the product we get? Will we stop thinking about looking at things a new way? I don't know. I don't know. But I think it'll be a big blow to the legal profession, but I think there'll be some smart people that will take advantage of it. And we might get more creative. I don't know.

Edward Reisner: Well, we've exhausted an hour, and-

David Walsh: Well, it's good to see you again.

Edward Reisner: We've gone through the outline that I have. I want to thank you for sharing with us. We'll get you a copy of the transcript of this, and you're free to edit and do whatever you want with the transcript. The oral portion of it, as I said, will be maintained at the UW Law School Library for at least the foreseeable future. Some days somebody's going to bring all these oral histories together. They're repositories in a lot of different places. And so we'll see how that goes. But thank you very much, David.

David Walsh: I'm curious, what do you hear from people about where we're headed with what we charge? Let me give you a fact. If 15,000 was the highest payment, and we have a seven, call it an eight inflation factor, I know that because I just did a bank loan and I had to go back to 1970, 7.5, so let's call it eight because my math isn't that good. So eight times 15 is $120,000. Now that's top student. And then take the hourly rate that we were charging then, I think it was $75. It was 35 if the state had you do an appeal.

When I left the practice, I had a huge case in New York. I'll never forget it because I didn't like these guys. And it was a case in which we were right. We were the state of Wisconsin putting a bond insurer into bankruptcy because, in 2008, we couldn't had five billion in assets and 20 billion in claims. So we were obviously underwater. And I was working with Dewey Bellintine, who I had plenty of friends that over the years, huge big offices in New York.

And they were dark. And I said, "You just put me down here. I couldn't even find the bathroom. You wouldn't turn on the lights. What's going on here?" And I said, "With the blow up of the securities market, the arm residential mortgage backed securities and the CMBSs," he said, "We don't have any work. I mean, Bear Stearns is gone, Lehman is gone.

And one guy said, "I have six million a year from them, and so we laid off our people." And I'm sitting there, and this guy is, I'm talking to a sergeant on my case, 1100 an hour. We are not paying it. The company is and I'm complaining that we're not paying your legal fees. Not at that. He said, "Well, isn't the simple answer for you to be charging 1100?" And I said, "Well, I will charge 1100 just despite you guys, and I'll go to the court and let them cut me because they'll cut you too." I didn't like these guys. And Moody's was there, and they're a bunch of jerks. They're the ones that rated all the stuff A. And we went through this and I remember thinking, what's wrong with you people? And I had huge rates on this case.

I think Foley, I'll bet we did eight, $9 million worth of work in two years. I had a whole team. And that was when I decided that I quit. I said, "I don't need this. What am I trained to do with my kids? I don't want them to fly first class." So I went back there about six months later and the door had a bar on it, and I said, "What's going on now?" And they said, "Well, our two, our president or vice president of the law firm," whatever, "They had been indicted."

And what they did is they lied to their bankers. Those law firms have big lines of credit. Foley went to zero cash at the end of our fiscal year. We would not borrow money for salaries. And they not only got indicted, they had two trials and eventually got only about a third of the charges against them. They had to do with bank fraud. Because what they did is they cooked their books.

And you can do that when you tell somebody you've got a receivable here, you don't tell them that you overcharge somebody. And they all failed. Dewey Balentine, one of the great law firms, that was Tom Dewey, I don't know who Balentine was. And they merged with a big New Jersey firm that was a very good firm. And they went under. And I always remember that thinking it takes a calamity like the recession of '08, and the same thing happened with the savings and loan, and we could have one tomorrow.

Edward Reisner: I was thinking ...

David Walsh: It could happen.

Edward Reisner: National debt default could trigger something that changes our world.

David Walsh: You bet. Although, somebody told me that today, said the same thing to me. And he said, "But then these guys don't want to blame themselves, so they'll come around." I said, "Well, it could happen." And a run on the bank. Yesterday I had a talk with a small bank, it's probably 700 million. And I said, "Just tell me." And they're building a hotel for us, and our equity is like 50, 60%. So it's not a tough loan for them. And I mean, the brick's worth, if we go, nobody shows up, it's worth twice that. So I said to him, "Just tell me. I mean, I'm not asking for anything," but we needed to redo the loan.

"How can you not say to me, you're going from three and a half percent to six and a half. How could you give us a better loan?" He said, "We can't even give you a six and a half." He said, "We don't know if our deposits will leave tomorrow." And then they said, "Do you want to buy some stock?" I thought that was funny. I said, "No, I don't want to buy anything." But I thought that it was a nice conversation. It wasn't argumentative. And boy, these people are important for the community. It's unbearable. And they support the Chamber of Commerce. And we're building a hotel that will be the shiny penny in Baraboo. Big deal. Huh?

Edward Reisner: Is this the one that's next to the Pizza Ranch?

David Walsh: Yes.

Edward Reisner: I know what you you're talking about.

David Walsh: I went in the Pizza Ranch. Have you ever been in one?

Edward Reisner: No. I keep trying to convince my wife to let me go in there.

David Walsh: You, you know what? I didn't know this, but it's buffet.

Edward Reisner: That's right.

David Walsh: You pay X dollars.

Edward Reisner: It reminds me of what Shakey's used to be many years ago.

David Walsh: But it had fresh vegetables. We sold them that property years ago. And I'm part of the owners of the property. We haven't made any money. And we were in there because the smell of the chicken is going into the hotel. And we said to him, 'You really, you've got to do something about this. It's not a nice smell," but that's what they start cooking the chicken early when people are getting up. So we're having a polite conversation, and they're nice people. And they said, "Well, maybe when don't we put a smoke stack up there?" I said, "No, we're two floors above you. It would have to be a pretty big smoke stack." That's our biggest concern, the chicken smell.

Edward Reisner: So we're rough, roughly about the same age. And you said, you're afraid you're becoming a curmudgeon law. I have that fear for myself too. But I look back on when I grow up, I can remember things that happened in 1950 and beyond. I watched Queen Elizabeth II being coronated.

David Walsh: So did I, black and white.

Edward Reisner: And so many times I thought, well, we've come to the precipice and we're about to collapse, and it hasn't happened yet. So knock on wood.

David Walsh: The worst part for us. So you're 76?

Edward Reisner: Yep.

David Walsh: I just turned 80. Let me tell you something that is not easy.

Edward Reisner: Oh, I tell people in the last five years, I've aged 15.

David Walsh: Well, but 80 is the worst.

Edward Reisner: Psychologically?

David Walsh: Yeah. Psychological. And I just turned it. I feel good. I've never, ever been hurt or anything other than in Vietnam I got hurt and I had surgery, but that was different. I got thrown against a bulkhead, but never been hurt. And I fell down in a storm. I had to have shoulder surgery and annoying. It's not your heart or anything. And for the first time I had on a thing and I couldn't carry food, I couldn't cook for my wife. And I thought, wow. I went all these years and that was shocking. And then to turn 80.

Edward Reisner: Let's end the recording and we can chat a little bit more.