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Attributions It's been said. . . I have friends who are attorneys. Rep. Frank Lasee, sponsor of a bill that cleared the Wisconsin State Assembly that would eliminate state funding for the UW Law School because, he says, taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize creating more lawyers We see this as an individual legislator lashing out at the legal profession because of a personal chip on his shoulder. Thomas Basting, president of the State Bar of Wisconsin, after it was noted that Rep. Lasee fired his lawyer in the midst of his 2003 divorce and accused the judge of lying from the bench my greatest concern is not merely that dollars times hours is bad for the lives of lawyers even though it demonstrably is but that it's worse for clients, bad for the attorney-client relationship, and bad for the image of our profession. Author-lawyer Scott Turow, urging in the August issue of the ABA Journal that lawyers, particularly litigators, should seriously consider alternatives to hourly billing It's an arbitrary age limit that doesn't look at vitality, intelligence, and the ability to perform a job. Karen Mathis, ABA president 2006-07, on a proposal before the ABA House at its August meeting that urges law firms to abandon mandatory retirement policies |