Bill Gleisner Bombshell

The race for Wisconsin's Second District Court of Appeals was already strange, but it has become a lot stranger.

Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes:

Attorney William Gleisner III, who is running for appeals court on April 1, recently invited public scrutiny of his life and record.

"I don't think anything is off limits," Gleisner said in a Journal Sentinel story earlier this month. "If you're unwise enough to throw your hat into the public ring and seek a public position and ask the voters, in effect, to hire you, then your background is fair game.

"All of your background is fair game."

The guy's life is an open book. And that would include this incident:

In December 1987, Gleisner sued his former law firm for $10 million, alleging that it had subjected him to such abuse that he spent months in a mental hospital.

After Gleisner's campaign first tried to discourage No Quarter from writing about his past troubles, the candidate put a happy face on the whole ordeal.

"It's great to get these things out and talk about them," Gleisner said Wednesday, "because I'm very proud of what I've done."

In an interview, the 61-year-old attorney said he spent several months in a couple of Wisconsin mental hospitals - the psychiatric wing of the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison and St. Michael's Hospital in Milwaukee - back in 1986 after he suffered a nervous breakdown. Gleisner said he thinks he checked himself into the hospitals, though a story at the time simply says he was committed.

The Milwaukee Journal story on Dec. 31, 1987, also said he was forced to give up his "status as an active member of the State Bar of Wisconsin and is not currently employed."

Gleisner said the depression was a temporary condition triggered by what he called harassment from fellow lawyers at Weiss, Berzowski, Brady & Donohue, the firm that he had joined in 1984. In the appeals court race, he is challenging recently appointed Judge Lisa Neubauer.

"For me, it was a situational thing," Gleisner said. The experience, he added, "makes me a compassionate man."

That sense of compassion, however, didn't stop him from taking a shot at Milwaukee's largest law firm, Foley & Lardner.

Gleisner said Foley represented him in his dispute with Weiss and its partners before he filed suit. He continues to use Foley on other matters, he said. His opponent worked for Foley before being appointed to the appellate court by Gov. Jim Doyle in December.

Given his long relationship with the firm, Gleisner said he was upset about comments Foley partners have made about him during the campaign. He then strongly hinted that the firm might be behind the revelations about his 1987 suit. No Quarter first received word of the litigation in an anonymous letter.

"I find it very worrisome that information about this surfaced literally at the almost 12th hour of this campaign," Gleisner said when asked if he was saying Foley attorneys leaked the information. "I find it very, very troubling."

Top officials with the law firm were not available for comment.

What's not clear about Gleisner's old lawsuit is how exactly it was resolved. The file was in storage at the courthouse and will not be available until later this week.

Bice offers comments and reaction from some of the parties involved, such as William Staudenmaier, Robert Steuer, and John Brady.

...William Staudenmaier, the attorney who represented the Weis firm and eight individual defendants, said he could recall that Gleisner made a lot of allegations in his complaint. But he said he remembered that the judge threw out the case, ruling that Gleisner should have filed a worker's compensation claim. Staudenmaier said he doesn't know if Gleisner ultimately received some money via worker's comp.

For Staudenmaier, the bottom line was this: "We didn't pay him anything."

Robert Steuer, a defendant in the case, had a similar recollection. A judge tossed the matter, he said. But Steuer said Gleisner appealed, and the two sides settled.

...More forgiving was John Brady, another defendant who is still with the Weiss firm.

Brady declined to talk about the lawsuit or Gleisner's exit from the firm. He did say this about the candidate: "I'm extremely impressed with how Bill has handled his life since he left our firm. He should be commended."

As for Gleisner, he said the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. But he added, "It wasn't for a nuisance amount." His lawyer in the case, Jim Weis, was in trial Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

The 2008 elections -- local, state, and national -- are ugly.

I'm so disgusted with the way candidates and their campaign staffs are conducting themselves.

I think it's odd that Gleisner isn't sure whether he voluntarily checked himself into the hospitals. I don't think one would be unsure as to whether or not one was committed. Certainly, it's possible that the media coverage at the time was inaccurate. However, the fact that Gleisner is hedging a bit by claiming that he "thinks" he chose hospitalization sends up a red flag. That's a detail one would recollect.

It's always, always, always best to be forthcoming rather than appear to be covering up.

I find the whole anonymous letter thing to be very troubling.

Clearly, Gleisner has some enemies.

I can't believe that someone connected with Gleisner's campaign sent the letter. The sympathy vote wouldn't be worth the revelation.

Did it originate with someone at Foley, a Lisa Neubauer supporter? It's possible.

The anonymous letter and the timing of its arrival smacks of dirty politics, really low.

One can argue that Gleisner's recent coming out as a conservative is dishonest, not to mention weird considering this race is for the Court of Appeals. It's a judicial position, not a legislative one.

But none of that makes the revelation of this story acceptable. There's less than a week before the election.

True, Gleisner went on record inviting scrutiny.

I guess this is a case of "be careful what you wish for."

At this point, without information about the old lawsuit available, there are more questions than answers. That hurts Gleisner. This case definitely raises doubts about him.

The source of the story is also a problem. If Foley attorneys leaked it, they weren't doing Neubauer any favors. It makes her look desperate. It's the timing that's most disturbing.

When a surprise like this comes out at the last minute, it's dirty.

Should the suit and the hospitalizations derail Gleisner's campaign?

That's hard to say since the story is so short on details. There isn't much time to sort through the details even if they were readily available now. It's very messy.

How convenient for Neubauer!

I do think what happened 20+ years ago is relevant. However, what Gleisner has done since that turbulent period in his life is of more importance.

It appears that Gleisner has put that all behind him decades ago. I don't know.

Voters don't have enough information to know how to respond.

This anonymous letter crap is very sleazy.

I want to know if Foley's fingerprints are on it.

What did Neubauer know?