{"id":29499,"date":"2020-12-21T15:06:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T21:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=29499"},"modified":"2020-12-21T15:16:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T21:16:16","slug":"remembering-chief-justice-abrahamson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2020\/12\/remembering-chief-justice-abrahamson\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Chief Justice Abrahamson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A[The following is a guest post from Daniel Suhr ’08, a prior guest alumni contributor to the Blog.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

While working as a junior lawyer in Governor Scott Walker\u2019s office, my phone rang one clear winter\u2019s day.\u00a0 It was the judicial assistant for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.\u00a0 The Chief had asked Dean Kearney if anyone else was traveling to that evening\u2019s Hallows lecture<\/a> from Madison, such that she could carpool. The Dean had kindly offered me up for the task. Could I meet her in an hour at the Capitol\u2019s MLK Drive exit?<\/p>\n

After quickly consenting, I rushed out to my Subaru Legacy and started grabbing granola bar wrappers off the floor. I ran to the BP on East Wash, which had a car wash, and did my best on short notice. I pulled into the Capitol\u2019s covered roundabout five minutes early and retrieved my passenger.<\/p>\n

She got in the front seat, and didn\u2019t bring any reading material, so we just started chatting. We talked mostly about good lawyering and tips for oral advocacy, as that seemed safe space. I drove exactly 65 miles per hour the entirety of I-94 connecting the state\u2019s two main downtowns.<\/p>\n

Eventually we arrived, found our respective seats, and learned about the law from former Solicitor General Paul Clement.<\/p>\n

At the dinner that followed on Eckstein\u2019s fourth floor, the Chief gently remonstrated me to keep it to one glass of wine, a ruling I followed for fear of being found in contempt otherwise.<\/p>\n

We departed after dessert, and again it was 65 on cruise control the whole way. We talked a little about the lecture, but I also remember her sharing her pride in her son and grandson in California when we turned to talk of family.<\/p>\n

We made it back to the Capitol safely, and she gave me a ten-dollar bill for gas money, saying it was so\u00a0 she wouldn\u2019t have to recuse on any cases with my name on them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure she knew when the Dean suggested it that I had criticized her decisions and judicial philosophy, at times vigorously, in blogs<\/a> and law review articles<\/a>. In my view, she was wrong about a lot of the big things in the law, though she was right on ending the mandatory state bar<\/a> and in never<\/a> missing<\/a> an occasion<\/a> at Marquette<\/a> Law School. I lucked out that one of those occasions was the 2013 Hallows Lecture.<\/p>\n

Daniel Suhr practices First Amendment law in the Milwaukee area.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[The following is a guest post from Daniel Suhr ’08, a prior guest alumni contributor to the Blog.] While working as a junior lawyer in Governor Scott Walker\u2019s office, my phone rang one clear winter\u2019s day.\u00a0 It was the judicial assistant for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.\u00a0 The Chief had asked Dean Kearney if anyone else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[351,68,122,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-contributor","category-judges-judicial-process","category-public","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29499"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29504,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499\/revisions\/29504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}