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Wisconsin's Citation Rule: Unpublished Should Not Mean Uncitable, Jacob Lloyd

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin’s citation rule stands tall, yet unsupported. It injures Wisconsin practitioners, their clients, and judges in all three levels of Wisconsin’s judicial branch. With little tolerance, Wisconsin Statutes section 809.23(3) precludes the citation of (1) unpublished opinions issued before July 1, 2009, and (2) unauthored, unpublished opinions thereafter. You may be surprised to learn that that means approximately half of Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions issued each year are uncitable—so, too, are significantly more than half of the opinions it issued before July 1, 2009. Without change, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals will continue to miscategorize its opinions; Wisconsin’s case …