Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Judge John L. Coffey, a man of strong conviction and strong faith, was remembered for his positive impact on family, the courts, and the legal profession in a ceremony April 17 in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall.

Nine judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit were on the bench at the ceremonial session in memory of Coffey, who died last November at 90. Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook said the location was appropriate because Coffey “thought the world of this school—this is where Jack Coffey would have wanted this celebration.” Coffey graduated from Marquette University in 1943 and from Marquette Law School in 1948 and was well known for his loyalty to Marquette.

Beginning in 1954, Coffey served as a judge in Milwaukee County, until he became a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1978. He joined the federal appeals court in 1982. In 2012, he announced he would not take part in cases—although, as was noted during the session, he didn’t really say he was retiring either.

“Jack did not see much ambiguity,” Easterbrook said. He described Coffey as a passionate advocate who once emphasized a written point he was making by underlining, bold-facing, and italicizing the passage. “He missed only the opportunity to put it in a larger font,” Easterbrook said.

Coffey was “a rock when it came to defending his principles,” Judge Rudolph T. Randa of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin told the audience of about 200.

Marquette Law School Dean Joseph D. Kearney said, “Jack Coffey focused relentlessly on the future,” including the future of the Law School. Coffey was one of the first alumni to encourage Kearney to consider leading the Law School out of Sensenbrenner Hall.

Francis Schmitz, who was a law clerk for Coffey in 1983-84, said that working for Coffey “was not unlike the parental concept known as tough love.” The judge was a demanding, no-excuses, no- cutting-corners boss who cared greatly and compassionately about those who worked for him, Schmitz said.

Peter Robbins, a grandson of the judge, said Coffey asked for divine guidance every day because he sat in judgment of others. He believed in hard work—“he always endeavored to know more”—but his family meant everything to him, Robbins said.

Coffey’s son, Peter Coffey, recounted how his father was one of ten children, all of whom graduated from Marquette.

Easterbrook said that Coffey had a reputation of being a dissenter, but during Coffey’s time on the federal appeals bench, there were 93 cases heard en banc and Coffey was in the majority in 78. He wrote the opinions in 11, which, Easterbrook said, was more than his share. “We miss his presence in our circles,” Easterbrook said.

I have had the pleasure of attending law school abroad at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey, and I am currently studying at the University of Copenhagen for one semester.  Other American law students have occasionally asked me about the benefits of studying law abroad.  Some may wonder whether I will be adequately prepared to practice in the United States, given my focus on foreign law.

My fellow law students and I will enter a legal world that is more globalized than ever before.  American clients are increasingly becoming subject to jurisdictions beyond United States borders, as corporations are diversifying their business throughout the world in response to the world-wide economic turmoil in recent years.  Now, it would not be uncommon for a business to be incorporated in Delaware, and have affiliated companies in Brazil and France.  This same company may well hold bank accounts in Switzerland, have assets in South Africa, invest in Saudi Arabia, and conduct business transactions in Japan.  As a result, lawyers may be asked to provide advice on how a French subsidiary of an American parent company would be taxed and whether any international tax conventions apply; what happens if an American financial institution enters into a contract with a Saudi lender and the contract fails to meet the strict requirements of Islamic finance law; or what if an American car dealer enters into a sales contract with a German car manufacturer and the contract fails to meet EU sales directives?  Questions such as these are becoming more and more relevant and American attorneys need to be able to provide answers to clients who wish to do business abroad.  Read more »

A few months ago, I pulled the Norton Anthology of English Literature from my bookshelf—an old friend to read on a cold winter day. The page fell open to Keats, and a reference to Richard Woodhouse, barrister and friend of Keats, caught my eye.

John Keats (1795-1821) was an English Romantic poet. Keats wrote for six years before he died of tuberculosis in Rome at age 25. During that short time, he created some of the most beautiful verse, such as his sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816):

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific–and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise–
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Richard Woodhouse was an English barrister who represented Keats’ publisher, Taylor and Hessey. Keats and Woodhouse became friends, and Woodhouse encouraged Keats in his writing. Keats was to receive an inheritance when he turned 21, but he did not know of the inheritance. As such, Keats struggled for want of money, and his publisher gave him an advance on his second book. To me, Woodhouse had a unique view of Keats that came in part from Woodhouse’s work as a lawyer: Woodhouse, as a lawyer, was able to evaluate Keats both professionally and personally, and he recognized Keats’ talent.

Read more »

Our guest bloggers in May are Amelia Bizzaro ’03, 2L A.J. Peterman, and 2L Derek Becker. Many thanks to our April guests, 1L Mario Falsetti and 1L Grant Henderson.

With a little over a year before the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the United States has attempted to navigate complicated global crises without being drawn into additional conflict. Without a doubt the current crises in North Korea and Syria have tested that resolve. While the case for support or intervention can be debated within Congress and the corridors of the West Wing, one potential document has the legal authority to bind the United States to action without debate, public approval, or a congressional vote. Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty obliges the United States and its signatories (twenty-eight member countries in total) to collective defense in the event one of the member states is attacked. Similar to the alliance system that helped expand the Great War, this agreement continues to increase in members with Albania and Croatia joining in 2009, adding to the increased potential for errant state actors. Read more »

Kings, queens, princes and especially princesses are subjects of eternal fascination.  From fairy tales to the Sissi movies to glossy royalty magazines, we can’t seem to get enough of royalty. And as Amsterdam is getting ready for Queen Beatrix’s abdication and the investiture of King Willem-Alexander, I feel some pangs of regret about not being around other Dutch people during this last Queen’s Day. This sentiment took me by surprise: Not only have I never attended a Queen’s Day party since I moved to the United States, but I am also not a monarchist.

My objections to the Dutch monarchy stem in no small part from the undemocratic nature of an unelected head of state. The notion that my fellow Dutch citizens and I are “subjects” of our queen or king seems not only outdated, but also fundamentally at odds with self-government. Even those who defend the monarchy tend to emphasize its ceremonial character–which, ironically, makes it harder to justify the significant expenses associated with the institution. Read more »

The Atlantic has a good article out right now on mayoral participation in global diplomacy. According to the authors, the practice is increasingly common and ambitious. Mayors of large cities have taken on issues ranging from global warming to nuclear disarmament, to economic growth and terrorism. These efforts are also becoming more institutionalized. The mayor of New York, for example, has a “Mayor’s Office for International Affairs,” and Europe has an “EU-China Mayors’ Forum” that promotes relations between European and Chinese municipal authorities. The authors use the term “diplomacity” to refer to the “expanding propensity of cities to develop the necessary mechanisms to autonomously navigate foreign relations on their own.”

These developments strike me as interesting for a couple of reasons. First, they form half of a two-dimensional assault on a classical model of international relations, which identifies heads of state and their agents as the critical channels for official communication. Diplomacity amounts to a vertical assault on that model because it reflects a dispersion of diplomatic activity among national and local authorities. Communication by national officials other than heads of state—such as legislators—forms the other half: a horizontal assault in the form of a dispersion of diplomatic acts among component parts of national governments. Neither of these is new, but both have intensified under globalization. The result is an entirely different picture of international relations. If diplomacy under the classical model was centralized and tidy, the contemporary counterpart is decentralized and cluttered with a broad range of actors. This has both benefits and disadvantages. States and localities, for example, will often possess unique perspectives on international problems and unique capacity to develop solutions, but the proliferation of voices may also complicate the management of inter-state relations. Read more »

Each spring semester, when my first-year writing students have moved from objective writing from pre-selected authorities to persuasive writing and doing their own research, I have them keep track of their time. In law practice, time is money.  Even if a lawyer does not bill her hours to a client, she is likely still required to keep track of their time, if only for that organization’s internal purposes. For better or for worse, practicing attorneys must know well each .1 of an hour they work, on what, and for whom.

The time-keeping exercise is designed to provide students practice with billing their time, learning, for example, how to convert, say, twenty minutes of reading cases to .3 of research.  It’s also an exercise designed to give them practice on what kinds of activities to bill. The time spent online looking for case law? Yes.  The writing of the brief?  Of course.  But what about that one-hour meeting with the professor?  Sure.  I’d call that an office conference and lawyers have those all the time. 

After students have finished their first briefs and have turned in their time sheets, I have them reflect on keeping time and ask them what they learned from the exercise. Most students aren’t fond of the exercise, but do recognize its value. One student once asked why I couldn’t ask them to keep track of their time in “normal” increments, like .25, .50, .75, and 1.00. This year, one student responded that keeping time was, for him, incredibly painful.  You see, he said, he has Attention-Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Read more »

Earlier this week was the last day for our International Conflict Resolution class and, to close,  I thought I would post some overarching comments.  Particularly as the new Secretary of State, John Kerry, embarks on what I hope will be a successful quest to learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and encourage the parties to reach resolution, it is always useful to remember that newspapers cannot possibly convey the nuances and complexities of conflict.  Here are two different reflections on how American perspectives of the Middle East are shaped:

From Amber Ragonese:

Almost everything the average (non-Jewish) American hears about Israel is in some way related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Almost everything the average (non-Middle Eastern) American hears about the Middle East is in some way related to war.  Until participating in the Conflict Resolution course, I was no exception.  We hear of suicide bombers attacking crowded markets and public transit.  We hear of rockets crossing over the southern borders and of Palestinians  being targeted by Israeli military forces.  Given this background, I was a bit surprised to find myself around day three of our eight-day escapade suddenly realizing that not a moment had passed in which I felt unsafe or worried about my  security or overall well-being.   Read more »

April is National Poetry Month, which may be Marquette University President Scott R. Pilarz, S.J.’s favorite month.  And for good reason.  Poetry can sometimes say what we can’t; it can touch our hearts and our souls with its inspiration, its longing, its joy, and its sadness.

Last year, on this blog, several of us wrote about poetry, sharing our favorites, composing new poetry in both traditional and different ways, or exploring poetry in and about the law.  As student Gabe Houghton noted this post, there are some judges who compose opinions in verse.

As April closes, I just wanted to remind everyone that poetry should be celebrated all months and remember that there are many kinds of poetry.  Songs can be considered poetry set to music. There are also poetry slams.   My favorite in this last genre is Taylor Mali, teacher and poet.  You can see him perform his poem “Totally like whatever, you know?” here.  It’s a nice reminder for those of us who love language that what we say, as well as how we say it, matters.

The next time you see Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, ask him about his map. It’s the Mayor’s latest weapon in his battle to stop the state from eliminating residency requirements for municipal employees in Wisconsin. More than 120 municipalities have rules spelling out where their employees can live. But Governor Walker wants to change that. He says residency requirements are unnecessary and outdated, even counter-productive, and he has included language in his state budget that would end them.

Mayor Barrett says the Governor’s proposal doesn’t belong in the budget, since it’s not a fiscal item. But Barrett’s concerns go much deeper. In a recent e-mail to supporters, Barrett said an end to the city’s 75-year-old residency requirement could “destabilize” Milwaukee. I pressed the Mayor on that claim in a recent television interview. He said philosophically he agrees with the notion that people should be able to live where they want, but that local municipalities should be able to determine the conditions of employment for the people they hire. In Barrett’s world, that translates into a simple reality. If you don’t want to live in Milwaukee, don’t apply for a job with the city. He said there’s been no shortage of applicants.

Perhaps more important, Barrett said the value of assessed property in Milwaukee had fallen five billion dollars because of the economic downturn. He argued that based on experiences in other cities, such as Detroit, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Cleveland, significant numbers of city employees were likely to leave the city should the residency requirement be lifted. Barrett was making the case that there was great risk to his city, and he wanted to show me a map he carried with him into the television studio. You can see it here. Because of the amount of data in the file, it takes about 10-15 seconds to present itself.

The map shows the gravity of Milwaukee’s foreclosure crisis. Foreclosed properties are in red. As of last week, there were nearly 2600. Blue represents where the more than 7,000 city employees live. Besides helping stabilize struggling sections of Milwaukee, city employees are the backbone of a number of healthy, middle-class neighborhoods, including Bay View and the southwest, far south, and far west sides. These neighborhoods are home to hundreds of police officers and firefighters. But what happens if, as the Mayor believes, 40 to 50 per cent of those blue dots—city employees—move outside the city? Will there be a dramatic downward pressure on property values?

The Mayor contends the end of residency was a promise Governor Walker made to the Milwaukee police and firefighters unions in an effort to gain their support during his bid for Governor. Walker argues that personal freedom should trump conditions of employment, and that at the end of the day, it’s up to the city to become a more attractive place to live. Neither man knows exactly what will happen should the requirement be eliminated. Nor do they know what Mayor Barrett’s map will look like 10 years from now. But if Barrett is right, it will be a lot less blue, and Milwaukee could be a very different city.

I was inspired to write this post after a lovely conversation with my roommates (for those of you that might not know, by “roomies/roommates” I mean my parents #Living@Home) who were up north skiing over winter break. Essentially, my roomies called me with a very urgent question regarding the law. “Son, it appears they are having us sign a ‘Waiver and Release’ form that is really long, with lots of statements in capital letters that really don’t make any sense. Is there a statute on point that requires companies to use the word NEGLIGENCE in all capital letters over 30,000 times? What do we DO!?!?” asked my confused father. Fresh off my Professor Anzivino contracts exam, I knew exactly how to respond.

“Dad, you guys are in Wisconsin correct?”

“Yes, we are in Wisconsin.”

“Excellent. Dad, Mom, as an aspiring law student, and in order to adhere to the heightened Ethical Code that comes with being a lawyer, please understand I cannot provide any legal advice… but I think you should read the contract and ski away!” Read more »