The Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP) provides confidential assistance to help lawyers, judges, law students, and their families cope with problems related to the stress of practicing law.

Peterson Berk & Cross Attorney Michael Brown (this blog’s author) is a volunteer with WisLAP, and is happy to discuss the program with anyone who wants more information about it.

There are recent news reports about a company called Carrier IQ which has an application installed on millions of smartphones, including some Androids. Concerns exist that Carrier IQ’s application may be obtaining and transmitting phone users’ information without their knowledge.

My law firm handles individual rights matters, and I have been investigating the Carrier IQ situation.

If you have an Android phone and want to detect whether it has the Carrier IQ application installed on it, you can download this application called Carrier IQ Detector to do so.

If you have Carrier IQ installed on your smartphone and you have questions about your legal rights, please feel free to contact me at mbrown@pbclaw.com.

Attorney Michael Brown

Peterson, Berk & Cross SC

Peterson, Berk & Cross attorney Avi Berk was interviewed by Fox 11 regarding proposed rules by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The rules, if adopted, would try to make the WI Supreme Court more transparent to the public, and improve civility on the Court. The proposed rules would, among other new changes, allow the public to watch the justices deliberate cases.

The Fox 11 website article (here) and video both include commentary from Avi.

SCOWIS to discuss proposed changes: fox11online.com

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued a decision involving the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA) decision,which is good for WI employees alleging retaliatory discharge under WFEA discrimination law.

The decision was in favor of an employee-complainant who complained of “discrimination” generally to a manager (without specifically referencing the type/protected class basis) shortly before being fired.

http://www.wisbar.org/res/capp/2011/2010ap001902.htm , Town of Rome v. LIRC, 2010AP001902 09-08-11

According to the decision, the employee’s complaint about discrimination, while not specific, was sufficient to protect her under WFEA’s anti-retaliation law.

The case also supports WFEA’s in-part standard, that the employer is liable for mixed motive termination if it would not have fired the employee in the absence of its (partial) motivation to retaliate against the employee for her opposing discrimination.

I am an attorney, and every so often, a new potential client will email me, and will do so using their employment email address.  When this happens, often the person’s email will contain negative information about his or her employer, or other information the person would not want the employer’s management to read.

Please know this: most employers can, and will, access employees’ emails sent from their work email accounts. Even if your employer has “never” done this so far, and you think they never will, please know if you later file a legal dispute (or the employer thinks you may), the employer will likely become motivated to comb through your emails at that point.

You can avoid risks by simply doing this: if you email an attorney for your own personal purposes, use your personal (non-work) email account.

If you are a Wisconsin worker who lost your initial determination for unemployment benefits, and you want to contest/appeal that decision, make sure you file your appeal on time, and before the deadline stated on the determination document.

An appeal can be submitted online at the unemployment division’s website (click here), or via a letter.  When submitting the appeal, you should be very careful to closely follow the instructions on the determination form, and– I’ll emphasize it again– to submit the appeal before the deadline.

The initial determination form you received will state the deadline, and the instructions for filing an appeal via internet or letter.

If an appeal is filed late, it is very difficult to get unemployment benefits. Wisconsin’s unemployment division does not accept most excuses for a late appeal, and usually will not accept late appeals.

Don’t procrastinate. File the appeal the same day you received the determination if possible. It does not take long, and most of the information in the appeal is very straight-forward. I have another post here about things to consider when submitting an appeal.

For you employee rights attorneys out there who deal with federal summary judgment motions and common employer arguments, including those arguments that over-rely on the credibility of employer (interested) witnesses, this article is a must read:

“Preserving the Right to a Jury Trial by Preventing Adverse Credibility Inferences at Summary Judgment,” by attorney Matthew C. Koski, of The Employee Rights Advocacy Institute For Law & Policy.

This article has a very good discussion of the legal authority, and includes case law and cites that every employee rights attorney could use to help their employee-clients in federal summary judgment practice.