National Voter Registration Day: Get Ready to Make Your Voice Heard

white sign with a picture of an American flag and the words "vote here."Today has National Voter Registration Day—a good time to remind everyone register to vote so that all eligible voters can make their voices heard on Election Day (which, by the way, is Tuesday, November 8). While Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration, save yourself the time and the hassle of doing it all on Election Day and register now.

You can register to vote online at MyVote up to 20 days before Election Day (para MiVoto en español, haga clic aquí), by mail up to 20 days before Election Day. This year, that means the deadline for online or mail registration is October 19, 2022.

You can also register in person at your municipal clerk’s office until the Friday before Election Day, and you can register at your polling place on Election Day.

I’ll explain how to register online at MyVote, but first let me explain who is eligible to register to vote in Wisconsin.

Eligibility to Vote
You are eligible to vote in Wisconsin if:
* you are a United States citizen, and
* you are 18 years old by or on Election Day, and
* you have lived for at least 28 consecutive days before Election Day in the election district or ward in which you want to vote, and
* you are not in prison on a felony conviction or on parole, probation, or extended supervision at the time of the election (also called “on paper).

If you are a student at one of Wisconsin’s colleges or universities and are originally from another state, you can still vote in Wisconsin (but you cannot, of course, vote in both your home state and Wisconsin). And if you’re a Wisconsin resident but at a Wisconsin college or university away from your hometown, you can vote where your college or university is.

Getting Ready to Register Online
Once you have determined you are eligible to vote in Wisconsin, you will need to register. If you have moved since the last time you voted, you will want to make sure you update your registration.

You can register online at MyVote if: (1) you are already 18 years old; (2) you have an unexpired Wisconsin driver’s license or Wisconsin state identification card; and (3) your name, address, and date of birth on file at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) match the name, address, and date of birth you are using to register to vote. Let’s talk about each of these in turn.

First, to register online, you need to already be 18 years old. Those who will be 18 years old on or by Election Day can vote, but they will have to register through the hard copy paper process or in person on Election Day.

Continue ReadingNational Voter Registration Day: Get Ready to Make Your Voice Heard

Congratulations to AWL Scholarship Winners Bondar, Filali, and Gross

On Wednesday, September 7, the Milwaukee Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) Foundation honored three Marquette University Law School students with scholarships.

Head shot of a woman with long blonde hair; her name is Sarah Bondar
Sarah Bondar, 2L

Sarah Bondar, 2L, received the AWL Foundation scholarship. The AWL Foundation Scholarship is awarded to a woman who has exhibited service to others, diversity, compelling financial need, academic achievement, unique life experiences (such as overcoming obstacles to attend or continue law school), and advancement of women in the profession.

Bondar is a Wisconsin native and former law enforcement officer and 911 dispatcher. She wanted to attend law school to pursue her original dream of becoming a lawyer and helping victims of domestic violence. In addition to attending classes, working as a law clerk, and owning her own life coaching and event planning business, Bondar is actively involved in several student organizations. She’s the president of the Children and Family Law Association, president of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Society, director of communications for the Federal Practice Society, and Student Liaison for the State Bar of Wisconsin ADR Section. Bondar also volunteers with the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinic as a Student Board Advisor. After she graduates, Bondar plans to practice for a few years, then open her own firm, focused primarily on family law.

head shot of a young woman with long dark brown hair; her name is Noelle-Nadia Filali
Noelle-Nadia Filali, 3L

Noelle-Nadia Filali, 3L, was awarded the Virginia A. Pomeroy scholarship. This scholarship honors the late Virginia A. Pomeroy, a former deputy state public defender and a past president of AWL. In addition to meeting the same criteria as for the AWL Foundation scholarship, the winner of this scholarship must also exhibit what the AWL Foundation calls “a special emphasis, through experience, employment, class work or clinical programs” in one of several particular areas: appellate practice, civil rights law, public interest law, public policy, public service, or service to the vulnerable or disadvantaged.

Continue ReadingCongratulations to AWL Scholarship Winners Bondar, Filali, and Gross

In Remembrance of One Public Defender—and in Praise of All Such

Howard EisenbergHoward B. Eisenberg’s yahrzeit, as some might say, is late this week: June 4 will mark 20 years since his death. We remember him at Marquette University Law School as our dean, a position in which he served with great effect and distinction but for too brief a time (1995 until his death in 2002). On occasional past anniversaries of his death, various of us have recalled one aspect or another of his deanship (a post last year contains various links).

Yet it is another part of Howard’s remarkable professional life to which I find myself often returning these days. For almost six years—from December 1972 to September 1978—Howard served as the State Public Defender, by appointment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Without doubt, this was his great formative work after law school, and much that he did subsequently can be traced to those six years (we reprinted Howard’s full resume in the special memorial issue of the Marquette Law Review published upon his death, beginning at p. 208 in the journal’s numbering).

Without doubting the difficulties of a deanship (in Howard’s case, first with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and then at Marquette), Howard’s work as the State Public Defender was an extraordinary challenge. He was thrust into it barely a year out of law school and only months after finishing a clerkship with Justice Horace Wilkie of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (What remarkable work Howard must have done as a law clerk to engender that sort of confidence from the court.) Howard met the challenge, at least insofar as anyone could have, as attested in the 2002 memorial issue by three of his former colleagues in the public defender’s office. Their essays capture an impressive amount of his work and even personality, as I am reminded by his occasional wry self-introduction in those years (recalled on p. 248): “I’m Howard Eisenberg, State Public Defender, which the Supreme Court thinks is Latin for ‘Judgment Affirmed.’”

I have never been a public defender, of course, although a long-running pro bono case that over the past decade Anne Berleman Kearney and I have handled, as appointed by the public defender’s office, has given me a small bit of relatively firsthand insight into the joys and (mostly) sorrows experienced by public defenders, at least in appellate matters (Howard’s métier). So I am reminded of him in that professional sphere as well.

In all events, this year, even as I recall Howard Eisenberg, I hope, looking forward, that we, as a legal profession and certainly as a law school, can celebrate the work of these extraordinary men and women: our public defenders. We are fortunate in Wisconsin to have the leadership of Kelli Thompson, L’96, as the State Public Defender, and her colleagues include Tom Reed, longtime adjunct professor here. To preview an upcoming issue of the Marquette Lawyer magazine (the one coming out not in a couple of days but in late 2022), I imagine that we will have more to say there. For what it is worth here, I wish to say that the work of all of these individuals has my great admiration.

Continue ReadingIn Remembrance of One Public Defender—and in Praise of All Such
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