Barron County v. K.L., 2021AP133, District 3, 8/9/22 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity
Langlade County v. D.J.W., 2020 WI 41, ¶3, 391 Wis. 2d 231, 942 N.W.2d 277, held that “going forward circuit courts in recommitment proceedings are to make specific factual findings with reference to the subdivision paragraph of Wis. Stat. § 51.20(1)(a)2. on which the recommitment is based.” Deciding an issue addressed in the dissenting opinion in Sheboygan County v. M.W., 2022
Continue Reading Circuit court’s failure to specify ch. 51 dangerousness standard was harmless error
Failure to raise defense of lack of personal jurisdiction in TPR case waived the issue
Portage County DHHS v. A.K., 2022AP30, District 4, 8/11/22 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity
A parent’s failure to raise the issue of the circuit court’s personal jurisdiction as a defense during the TPR proceeding means the issue was waived.
The attorney representing A.K. in a pending CHIPS proceeding accepted service on A.K.’s behalf of a petition to terminate A.K.’s parental rights to the child. A new lawyer was appointed to represent A.K. in the TPR proceeding,
Continue Reading Failure to raise defense of lack of personal jurisdiction in TPR case waived the issue
Officer had reasonable suspicion to extend traffic stop
State v. Michael Justin Schwersinske, Jr., 2022AP162-CR, District 2, 8/10/22 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
Schwersinske concedes the lawfulness of the initial stop of the car he was driving for crossing the centerline of Highway 151. But he argues, unsuccessfully, that the officer didn’t have reasonable suspicion to extend the stop to have Schwersinske do field sobriety tests.
¶17 Here, the officer stopped Schwersinske at a time of night in which impaired
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Communications in Mediation: Not Admissible in Court?
In Higgins v. Hahn – an unpublished per curiam Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision issued May 4, 2022 – a mediator in a divorce action testified in the trial court about some of what occurred during the mediation. Such a scenario implicates Wis. Stat. section 904.085, which governs the admissibility of communications in mediation. Case Facts By way of background, the parties reached agreement in mediation. However, after the divorce was finalized, the husband realized the value of the
Continue Reading Communications in Mediation: Not Admissible in Court?
“The heavy, barred gates of the professions creak on their hinges.”
“The heavy, barred gates of the professions creak on their hinges.”
Lavinia Goodell, November 1875
In November of 1875, the seventh annual meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association was held at Steinway Hall in New York. Over 200 delegates, both men and women, attended.
November 19, 1875 New York Daily Herald
Lavinia Goodell was unable to attend, but she wrote a letter for the occasion, and her friend and mentor, Lucy Stone, chairman of the executive committee,
Continue Reading “The heavy, barred gates of the professions creak on their hinges.”
Benefits Counselor – August 2022
HEALTH AND WELFARE PLAN DEVELOPMENTSHHS, DOL and IRS Address Contraception Coverage in FAQs
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Labor (DOL), and Department of Treasury (IRS) (collectively, “Departments”) issued a new set of FAQs to clarify protections for contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The guidance comes after the Departments issued a joint letter last month warning health plan sponsors and insurers of possible future enforcement actions for non‑grandfathered plans that do not
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What Divorcing Couples Need to Know About Dividing Real Estate Property
By: Attorney Megan Drury and Paralegal Ali Jaeger
Anyone going through a divorce will need to address multiple issues related to their finances and the property they own. When dividing marital property, a couple will need to consider all of the assets and debts they acquired during their marriage. One of the most important of these assets is the couple’s marital home. Real estate can be a significant investment, and each spouse will want to make sure they
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Three Sources on the Respect for and Availability of Tribal Law
Today, in the United States, there are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes. These sovereign Nations produce thousands of statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions each year. However, there is a lot of uncertainty and misunderstanding regarding the respect for and availability of tribal law. I recently encountered three resources that offer some insight.
- Matthew Fletcher, MSU professor of law and leading scholar and contributor to the field of Indian Law, recently posted a piece on SSRN entitled, Reflections
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Use of Jailhouse Recordings Didn’t Violate Defendant’s Right to Counsel
August 11, 2022 – Inculpatory recordings made secretly by a defendant’s cellmate and introduced at the defendant’s homicide trial did not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled.In State v. Arrington, 2022 WI 53 (July 1, 2022), a four-justice majority held that the introduction of the recordings against the defendant was constitutional because the defendant’s cellmate had not acted as a government agent in making the recordings.The supreme court also held
Continue Reading Use of Jailhouse Recordings Didn’t Violate Defendant’s Right to Counsel
Can I Get a Wisconsin Professional License if I Have a Felony Conviction?
By: Attorney Kristen Nelson and Paralegal Rachel Sweet
A number of professions require people to obtain licenses before they can work in that field. Obtaining a professional license can be a complex process, and a person will usually need to provide documentation of education or training, and they may need to meet other requirements, such as having a certain amount of experience. Depending on the profession, there may be some issues that could affect a person’s ability to obtain
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New, Easier Way to Make Federal Court Documents Freely Available via RECAP
If you routinely access federal dockets and court documents, you may already know that you can get some documents free from the RECAP Archive, a database of millions of PACER documents and dockets maintained by the Free Law Project. These documents are “donated” by users who purchase them on PACER, then automatically send them to the RECAP archive by means of free browser extensions.
Now there is another new way to add PACER documents to RECAP:
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Adapting Operations to Seamlessly Interface with Clients
While our passion is to deliver quality legal counsel to our clients, we are ever cognizant that our clients are in business to do business. To that end, we continually adapt our business operations to integrate with the various platforms our clients use to handle billing, docketing, communications, and other administrative tasks. The following highlights just a few of the ways the IP Section at von Briesen fine-tunes its practice to seamlessly interface with clients.
Docketing
A robust docketing
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Preparing for the European Unitary Patent System
Companies and attorneys will now have to consider new patent strategies in the European Union with the upcoming launch of the new Unitary Patent System. Today, inventors protect inventions in Europe via a national patent or a European patent examined by the European Patent Office. However, European patents can become costly and complex as each granted patent must be maintained individually in each country.[1] The Unitary System attempts to address the complexity and costs of national validation procedures
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Congress Aims to Expand Patent Eligible Subject Matter
A bill introduced this month by Sen. Thom Tillis, (R-NC), the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2022, if enacted, would overrule the Supreme Court’s decision in Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S.Ct. 2107 (2013). In Myriad, the Supreme Court decided that a human gene is a product of nature that is “not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated”, with the justices invalidating Myriad Genetics’ patents on an isolated gene associated
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Examiner-Initiated Interviews
Previously we wrote about the benefits of conducting applicant-initiated examiner interviews to clarify issues and advance prosecution of a patent application toward allowance. Examiner-initiated interviews may similarly advance prosecution of a patent application if the examiner presents issues that can be resolved with a telephone call. In some situations, it may be preferable from the client’s/applicant’s perspective to have the issues reduced to writing and appear in the file wrapper for the application. What follows are some general guidelines
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Court of Appeals rejects equal protection challenge to burden of proving TPR petition
State v. S.S.M., 2022AP524 & 2022AP525, District 1, 8/2/22 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity
Under § 48.415(intro.), termination of parental rights to children subject to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) requires, in addition to proof of one or more grounds for termination under subs. (1) to (10), proof of “active efforts,” as defined in § 48.028(4)(e)2., to prevent the breakup of the family as well as the unsuccess of those efforts. S.S.M., whose
Continue Reading Court of Appeals rejects equal protection challenge to burden of proving TPR petition