20/20 Hindsight

From cultural revolutions to COVID-inspired technology shifts, the legal industry has seen a lot since Wisconsin Super Lawyers magazine launched in 2005. To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we caught up with five attorneys who have been listed all 20 years to discuss how their practices have evolved and the major changes they’ve seen.

Career Beginnings

Michelle Behnke, Boardman & Clark; Real Estate, Business & Corporate, Estate Planning; Madison: I had been in a firm and I had been in-house counsel, but I missed that more direct client interaction. So a little more than 26 years ago, I went out on my own. I consider what I do “happy law”—people want to buy commercial real estate, or want to do their estate plan, or want to do some development, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Being able to help at the beginning and trying to be that resource for clients—that was the motivation for how I wanted to run my firm.

Steve Bach, Pines Bach; Family Law; Madison: I practiced for a year in Richland Center and then moved back to Madison. I was in two different firms and then joined Lester Pines, who was in practice with Lee Cullen and Cheryl Weston, in 1986, at which time it became Cullen Weston Pines & Bach. Cheryl Weston passed away several years ago and Lee Cullen retired, at which time it became Pines Bach.

Kevin Lonergan, Herrling Clark; Personal Injury – General; Plaintiff; Appleton: The first job I had out of law school was in the district attorney’s office in Eau Claire. I knew I wanted to do civil litigation, but I wanted to get a lot of trial experience before I did that. I went to a startup law firm in La Crosse and only stayed there for a little more than a year. I interviewed at Herrling Clark, got offered a job and started in August of 1982. By 1985, I was specializing in the area of personal injury litigation. From that point onward, that’s what I did. I’ve been with Herrling Clark ever since.

Kathy Nusslock, Amundsen Davis; Business Litigation, Estate & Trust Litigation; Milwaukee: I graduated law school in 1985 and I started work at a small firm called Cook & Franke. In law school, I was advised that if I wanted to try litigation I should start there while the rules of procedure/evidence were more fresh in my mind. That’s where I started and that’s where I stayed; it’s been almost 40 years. I joined Davis|Kuelthau in 1998 and, in November of ’22, we combined with a Chicago-based firm called SmithAmundsen. In 2022 I also formed a mediation company called Concurrence ADR with two partners.

Jeff Hynes, Hynes & Kreuser; Employment & Labor; Elm Grove: My early career path was something of a contradiction in terms, thankfully with a happy ending. I started as a government attorney with the National Labor Relations Board. I next practiced with two large, reputable corporate law firms. I then threw that all to the wind, jumped off the corporate law partnership track and did a complete 180 to take them on.

Industry Evolution

Bach: Around 1978, family law in Wisconsin changed with the introduction of no-fault divorce. Before ’78, there was no such thing as no-fault divorce, and we had to allege different kinds of grounds, like adultery. In the last 20-25 years, the introduction and development of collaborative divorce has been a significant and positive change in expanding the options available to families in which the marriage is ending. It’s a much kinder way to go through a difficult process.

Lonergan: One thing that was a real major change was the Legislature passing a law saying judges have the right to order parties to go through mediation. Some lawyers have lost the art of negotiation because we rely upon mediators to do a lot of that type of work. Mediators are doing a very good job of getting cases settled. The number of cases going to trial has been reduced dramatically.

Nusslock: The passage of the uniform trust code in Wisconsin has been a definite improvement in terms of giving guidelines on how the administration of estates, whether it’s through probate court or through trusts, should be accomplished. It’s been very helpful.

Behnke: Coming out of the pandemic, Wisconsin has now adopted electronic notary and, more recently, electronic witnessing and signature of estate planning documents. These measures recognize a more electronic world, but also recognize that mobility, especially for older adults, may hinder their ability to effectuate estate planning documents. There have also been changes in business entity laws recognizing the need for flexibility in formation and the different ways in which shareholders or members might express their agreements for operation of the entity.

Hynes: The biggest change I have seen is that, in a profession that is highly social and people-centered—particularly my field of labor and employment law—I’ve watched an entire industry, post-COVID, go into hiding. Hearings and other key proceedings are now increasingly done by Zoom or phone. While these changes have perhaps been a small triumph for efficiency, they occur at a measured cost to effective advocacy, due process and the human element that is so important to the integrity and well-being of our legal system.

Cultural Shifts

Bach: When I first started, property division in a divorce was typically one-third to the woman, and two-thirds to the man. It has changed to a standard of a presumption of equal division. On the other hand, for a long time when it came to fighting over kids, women had a much greater advantage than men in getting custody of kids. Now, there’s not supposed to be a presumption of what’s best for kids based on the sex of the parent. As a result, over the years fathers have been getting more and more custody.

Lonergan: When I joined the firm, it was all men. We started adding women to the firm, but because they were younger in the firm and hadn’t been there awhile, the structure was that males were dominating senior positions in the firm. Now, over the course of time, we’ve had women who’ve been practicing for longer periods of time and are part of the management team. It took a while for men to really adjust their way of thinking.

Nusslock: When I went to law school, there weren’t many women who had been in a long-term practice. Now you have many women who, like me, have spent 30, 40 years in a practice, so attorneys coming in have another group of mentors they can look to. It’s not unusual now where I’ll have a case where all the attorneys are women. Whereas when I started, it was somewhat unusual to have women in litigation roles, and it was very common, if there were multiple parties, that I would be the only woman representing clients.

Behnke: Often if I were in a room, and I was going to meet with clients on the other side, somebody would look at me and say, “Hey, can I get a cup of coffee?” They assumed I was an assistant or something. As a younger woman, they just didn’t presume I was the lawyer for the other side. But now having practiced as long as I have and being very fortunate to have made the name for myself as I have, it doesn’t happen very often.

Hynes: I am finding movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have reflected positively in the workplace. I’m seeing more and more of my opponents—including corporate counsels and human resource professionals—highlighting their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, with policies designed to be preventative with respect to discrimination and injustices in the workplaces. Those strides are a good thing for equal opportunity and the economy as a whole.

Technological Advances

Lonergan: Back in the old days, we didn’t have computers, so when I wanted an exhibit to use at trial, we’d get those Styrofoam boards and we’d put together a big depiction of a page out of the medical record or an exhibit from accident. Nowadays, everything is stored in a software package and everything can be brought up on a screen instantaneously. It’s really helpful and sometimes it will shorten cases.

Hynes: When I graduated from law school, 1984, I was considered to be far ahead of my time because I knew how to effectively use a Dictaphone. Now the name of the game is voice recognition apps that type your work as you speak, and the hiring of attorneys who type 70-100 words a minute. I honestly never thought I’d see the day where one of the primary qualifications law firms are looking for in a young attorney is typing velocity and computer prowess.

Bach: When I started 50 years ago, we used carbon paper to make copies. I remember having to go to the courthouse to use what was a Xerox machine of some sort. It wasn’t common, at least in a small town, to have a copier in your own office.

Nusslock: We never had to worry about cybersecurity when I started in 1985—that wasn’t even a word. We had intellectual property law and still do have people developing and designing things and building new products, but anything that has to do with technology, that has been obviously a big change.

Behnke: As I started practicing, people came to you with some legal issue, but they had very little understanding of what might be involved. Now with the internet, they research and they often come in and think they know. Sometimes it’s a great thing, because you know they have invested some time and energy. Sometimes clients do the research and have taken steps and you have to clean up something because they didn’t quite understand.

Standout Memories

Nusslock: Earlier in my career, we had a ship in the Port of Milwaukee when a storm arose. The ship was really battered against the dock. The owners were Greek and the ship was part of a club in England, and I was fortunate enough to do a lot of travel where I was in England to talk to people, I was in Greece to meet with some of the representatives of the ship owner. That really was a very unique experience.

Bach: I spent a year and a half in the Peace Corps in South America, and I learned how to speak Spanish. Way back when, there were many immigrants from Cuba after Castro sent a lot of people over in the late ’70s. As a result, I did a fair amount of criminal defense work appointed by the public defender representing people who spoke Spanish.

Behnke: There have been clients I have been working with almost my entire solo practice career. I have helped them grow their business or make a transition in their business, and to be that trusted adviser through a significant life cycle of a business is very rewarding. When you get to be an adviser across lots of different issues in a business, that shows a level of trust.

Lonergan: In the early ’80s, I defended a 16-year-old boy charged with the first-degree murder of his brother-in-law following a domestic dispute. The prosecutor was unwilling to negotiate. We tried the case, and over the course of about a week and a half, with several television cameras and reporters in the courtroom, the jury found my client guilty of a much lesser charge of manslaughter, which he would have readily accepted in a plea agreement. Rather than spending the rest of his life in prison, he was sentenced to 10 years which, under the circumstances, was clearly more appropriate.

Hynes: Early in my career I took the case of an hourly worker who had been denied Family and Medical Leave Act time. I took it all the way up to the [state] Supreme Court and I ultimately obtained a result for him that sent a very strong message that this law has teeth and is in place to provide real protections and remedies to Wisconsin workers who need time off for serious medical conditions. The joy I saw in that client’s eyes—as a David speaking truth to Goliath—will stay with me forever.

Advice for the Next Generation

Behnke: Your reputation is really all you have. Doing something on the edge will never be helpful to you in the long run. Trust your gut—if it doesn’t feel right, it’s not right.

Bach: I would certainly encourage new lawyers to ask questions, and to not be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

Lonergan: You’ve got to get into a courtroom. It’s harder for a young lawyer to do that in this day and age because of the number of cases that settle. But you need that to have confidence to say, if we don’t settle this case, we’re going to go to trial.

Nusslock: Get involved, whether it’s the bar association, a nonprofit, or any organization where you’re meeting people and making connections. The more connections you develop, the more it develops your growth as an attorney.

Hynes: I have a quote by Confucius pasted to my wall: “Find a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.” I am grateful to be able to say, without hesitation, that I have achieved that goal and work every day to help my clients achieve it as well.