Vol. 78, No. 7, July 2005

We're all in This Together

by Dianne Molvig

For a new State Bar president, the swearing-in ceremony may be as much an occasion for reflecting on the past as it is for looking at the year ahead. At his swearing-in on May 5, D. Michael Guerin reveled in the moment with his wife, his three grown children, and four of his six younger sisters, who wouldn't have missed their big brother's special day for anything. Only hospitalization of one sister in Illinois and family obligations of another in Atlanta could keep those two away.

Others in the crowd that day included many attorneys who know Guerin from his 30-year career in private practice in Milwaukee. Also present were members of the Milwaukee Police Department's bagpipe and drum band, who had asked Guerin if they could perform at his ceremony. It was a gesture true to that legendary camaraderie among police officers, even though it's been more than 30 years since Guerin was one of them.

In a conversation a few weeks after he was sworn in, Guerin expresses a thought that may have been on his mind as he looked around him at those attending the ceremony. "Life is pretty good to me," he says. "I have a great family and friends. The support I've received from people in the law enforcement community has been overwhelming. And as a lawyer, I've tried cases in front of nearly every court I could appear before, in lots of jurisdictions. Not bad for a guy who used to drive a Pepsi truck."

Finding His Way

Guerin grew up on Milwaukee's south side, where his father was a car salesman and his mother worked as a school secretary. Education was a top priority for his parents, so they were pleased when their son enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, only to be immensely disappointed when he dropped out just two months later. That's when he landed behind the wheel of a Pepsi truck.

Back then, a career in law enforcement was the furthest thing from his mind, but a fellow Pepsi truck driver desperately wanted to become a cop and talked the then 21-year-old Guerin into applying with him. "Naturally, I got the job, and he didn't," Guerin says.

He started out as a patrol officer and later got an assignment to the tactical enforcement unit, a small squad created during Milwaukee's civil disturbances in the 1960s. "We were on all the open housing marches [which protested segregated housing and often erupted into violence]," Guerin says. "I saw history being made. It opened up the eyes of people like me."

While working full time as a police officer, he also became a college student again. This time around he finished his degree by taking night classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College and later at Marquette University, thanks to a federal program that helped police officers pay for their college education. The program sprang out of recommendations in a report released during the Johnson administration by the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, popularly known as the President's Crime Commission. "The Commission recommended that better educated police officers might result in better police departments," Guerin explains, "and therefore better communities."

He sees his years as a police officer as still having an impact now that he's an attorney. "It absolutely plays into my life every day," he says. "Working in a police department, you learn how to deal with people and how to respect people. It made a huge difference in my life."

After nine years as a cop, Guerin got an offer from the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) to become a special agent investigating organized crime. Some of the lawyers he worked with at DOJ began to talk up law school, asking if Guerin had ever considered it. Clearly, they saw his potential. "Or," he jokes, "they were trying to play a trick on the profession."

Their encouragement spurred him to think about new possibilities. As Guerin notes, "I've had a lot of good mentoring in my life." A conversation with Dan Hanley, press secretary to state Attorney General Robert Warren, was the final nudge that sent Guerin on a new course.

From Lawman to Lawyer

Hanley and Guerin often drove together between the DOJ offices in Madison and Milwaukee. One day, their car got stuck in traffic for an hour because of heavy fog. As they talked, Guerin decided to broach the subject of law school. He was apprehensive, because he'd been in his job only 18 months, and the DOJ had given him a great opportunity. He wasn't sure what the reaction would be if he announced he was considering moving on so soon.

"But Dan said he thought going to law school was the right decision," Guerin recalls, "and that not only would the attorney general not be upset I was leaving, he would support my application. And he did. He was one of my recommendations to law school."

Three years later, as a 33-year-old ex-cop, Guerin graduated from Marquette University Law School - and made his parents extremely proud in the bargain.

With his law enforcement background, Guerin's natural inclination after finishing law school was to become a prosecutor. In fact, "That was the reason I went to law school," he says. Upon graduating, he had a job offer from Mike McCann at the Milwaukee County district attorney's office.

But Frank Gimbel, a former prosecutor (and a former State Bar president), with whom Guerin did a law school clerkship, suggested that Guerin would be a better prosecutor if he stayed in private practice for at least another year. "Frank thought it would open up some areas I hadn't thought about before," Guerin says. "And he was absolutely right."

So right, as it turned out, that Guerin never left Gimbel's firm, where he's now a partner, practicing mostly in the areas of personal injury and criminal and civil litigation.

From 2000 to 2001, Guerin served as president of the Milwaukee Bar Association, an excellent preparation in many ways for heading the State Bar, he points out. A major difference, however, is the geographical scope he's covering in his new position. "We have members all over the state," he says, "who have a right to expect that we will have a presence in their practices."

He's been traveling around Wisconsin to meet with members of local bars to hear their concerns and to find out what assistance they need from the State Bar. "Frankly," he notes, "the concerns of lawyers practicing in some areas of northern and central Wisconsin differ significantly from those of lawyers in Madison or Milwaukee."

Top Priorities

Still, lawyers face some common dilemmas no matter where they practice, Guerin observes. One is public perception. "My primary concern," he says, "is that people feel that the legal profession is truly what the Bar's brand says, `Expert advisers, serving you.'"

But public perception of lawyers is only half the equation, he adds. Equally critical is lawyers' views of themselves. "The lawyers who are out there laboring in the vineyards every day," he says, "must recognize that they're doing a very good job, an important job."

He draws parallels with what he experienced during his years among police officers, who often feel isolated and unappreciated. "The reality is," Guerin points out, "people do appreciate the job police officers do every day, even though they don't express it."

Lawyers, too, need to be reminded that the work they do is worthwhile and a service to the people in their communities, Guerin says. At the same time, lawyers must meet their obligations "to provide legal services and advice to a significant number of people who are either underserved or unserved," he adds.

Related to his concern about lawyers' view of their professional role is another issue: the impact of stress on attorneys' professional and personal lives. Not all stressors stem from jam-packed schedules and the demands of handling client matters, Guerin contends. "Stress comes in weird ways," he says, "such as when everybody out there thinks you're making a lot of money, so your clients pay you last, and you're barely making your mortgage payment."

Some lawyers respond to stress overload by abusing drugs or alcohol, or they become clinically depressed. Here again, Guerin wants to convey a clear message. "We want people to know that we're a partnership here," he says. "That's what the Bar association is about. We will be there on a daily basis for lawyers and their families, through the Lawyer Assistance Program, to deliver assistance in the form of lawyers who have been through these problems and have made excellent recoveries. We don't want lawyers to feel isolated, whether they live in a small town or feel like just another number living in a large city. We want to get out the message that if you think you're alone, you're not."

In This Together

As for other goals Guerin has for the coming year, he says he aims to stay on track with the State Bar's strategic plan. Others, including State Bar presidents before him, invested a good deal of effort into devising that plan, "and I don't think it should be altered," he says, "merely because we have a different person in the role of State Bar president."

Guerin plans no new initiatives at this point, noting there's plenty already on the table requiring the Bar's attention. Still, if important new initiatives do surface during the coming year, "We'll embrace them," he says. "When I say `we' I mean the Board of Governors working with the Bar staff. As I view the structure of the organization, I think we can handle anything that comes along."

He acknowledges, too, that lawyers perhaps could use an extra morale boost these days. Take, for instance, the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision to grant the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation (WisTAF) petition. The upshot is that, as of July 1, all active-member Wisconsin-licensed attorneys must pay a $50 annual fee to help fund civil legal services for people who can't afford an attorney. The Bar leadership lost its effort to defeat the petition, which has left mixed emotions in the aftermath among Bar members. Some wonder if the WisTAF fee will have a negative impact on public funding for indigent legal services and on lawyers' motivations to do pro bono and other community service. Some resent the mandatory nature of the fee. And others question how their lawyer colleagues could oppose contributing to a cause that so badly needs funding help.

Whatever the sentiments among Bar members may be, "The reality is," Guerin notes, "we have to have an excellent working relationship with the court. I'm comfortable saying that is going to occur."

He also would urge his fellow Bar members to remember one thing in the face of whatever new or ongoing difficult issues the coming year may bring. "We're all in this together," Guerin maintains. Those words reveal a hint of that old cop camaraderie from his former career, which seems to affect his outlook on the profession he's now been a part of for 30 years and his perspective as the new Bar president.

Whether it's the personal struggles of some individual attorneys, or larger issues affecting the entire Bar membership, "We'll get through any tough times as we have before," he says. "I have to be honest with you. I'm looking forward to taking on the challenges. I really am. All I'm hoping for is that the Bar is a better organization a year from now."

Wisconsin Lawyer