News

Appeals court overturns suit

An appeals court in Chicago, Ill., sent back to the Western Wisconsin U.S. District Court this week a lawsuit filed by a Waukesha-based lawyer who claimed the Wisconsin State Bar policies are unfair.

Christopher Wiesmueller, an Oklahoma City University School of Law graduate, originally filed the lawsuit in April 2007 against the Wisconsin State Bar for its policy that exempts University of Wisconsin and Marquette University law school students from taking the bar exam if they wish to practice law in Wisconsin.

But U.S. District Judge John Shabaz removed the case from court, stating Wiesmueller had already taken the exam. Wiesmueller said he appealed the case because the judge failed to rule whether the case could be a class-action lawsuit, in which case its effects would still be relevant to future law graduates.

Wiesmueller said he filed the case last year after suffering six months of financial struggles because he had to wait to take the state’s bar examination. The bar is a standardized exam for law school graduates, given by each state in which the graduates intend to practice law.

“The case is just on a procedural point right now,” former State Bar of Wisconsin President Steven Levine said.

The bar exam exemption policy allows students who have graduated from University of Wisconsin or Marquette University law school to start practicing law in the state without taking the nationwide test. UW law professor Gretchen Viney said this policy dates back to before the bar exam was even in existence.

“Wisconsin is simply the last state that still feels that if students come to an in-state law school and take the courses that are required at the law school … then they don’t need to take another test to prove that they are qualified,” Viney said.

The state believes “taking these particular courses is better than taking a bar exam,” she added.

According to Levine, though, this exemption is along the same lines as racial profiling. He says it constitutes discrimination to allow UW and Marquette law graduates to practice law without taking the exam, while forcing out-of-state law graduates to take the exam if they wish to practice in Wisconsin.

“If I were a graduate from [the UW or Marquette law programs], I don’t know if I could be proud of something like that,” Levine said.

But UW Law School Assistant Dean Kevin Kelly said some faculty in UW’s Law School feel the curriculum that law students are required to go through at both UW and Marquette are specially designed to prepare students for practicing in the State Bar of Wisconsin.

“[Wiesmueller] is alleging that people who have graduated from other law schools should be allowed to come into Wisconsin law without taking the bar exam, when Marquette and UW students have already taken a curriculum that has prepared them pursuant to the Wisconsin Law Bar Association,” Kelly said.

Levine said he just wants the requirements to be the same for all law school graduates, “whether they extend the policy to all students, or they make all students take the bar exam.”