Many thanks to our featured bloggers in April: Mike McChrystal, Julie Darnieder, and Sean Samis. The Faculty Blogger of the Month in May is Ed Fallone. The Student Blogger is Peter Heyne, and the Alum Blogger is Jon Deitrich.
Best wishes to 3Ls for success on your final final exams and in your endeavors afterwards!
My most useful and enjoyable extracurricular activity in law school had absolutely nothing to do with law school or the law, which was why it was both useful and enjoyable. Let me explain.
When I started law school, I had moved to a new city and state, and I did not know anyone other than my classmates. My high-school and college friends were several states away, as was my family. Because everyone I knew was a law student, law school became all-consuming, and it was easy to miss what was going on in the “real world.”
A few months into my first year, I noticed a flyer inviting people to participate in the university’s equestrian team. I had been riding since I was four years old, so the team seemed like a good fit for me. I joined the team and became the only law student — the only member who was not an undergraduate, actually. The team practiced one night a week, and those practices were important to me for a number of reasons.
Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued an interesting decision involving remedies for the discharge of in-house counsel in violation of the Equal Pay, Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. Sands v. Menard, Inc., involved a claim by a lawyer terminated from her position as vice president and executive general counsel of the Wisconsin-based building supplies company. The lawyer had claimed that she was the victim of gender-based pay discrimination. The matter was submitted to arbitration, and Menard was determined to have violated the lawyer’s rights in underpaying her and retaliating for her complaint.
The arbitration panel awarded the lawyer compensatory and punitive damages and also ordered reinstatement, a remedy that neither party sought. In upholding the reinstatement order, the court provided the following analysis: