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We see insurance companies in action almost every day. While not all of them act in bad faith, many of the largest companies changed business tactics in the 1990s to maximize profits while minimizing claim payments. Many of these are also the companies with the catchy advertising slogans and the quirky commercials. This month we […]

One of our nation’s most sacred promises to veterans is that we will take care of them if they are hurt in battle. But that promise is too often broken. As Veterans Day approaches on Nov. 11, we take a closer look at the issue of veterans’ benefits. Right now more than 240,000 veterans have […]

Bill Kraus said it well. One of the stories comes from Bill Dixon, an old friend who was on the Rodino staff. As I was preparing remarks for Cates’ service I called Bill. He gave this gem. Rodino needed a trial lawyer and Bob Kastenmeier recommended Cates. Dixon reports that when Dick Cates came in […]

Richard Cates ’47, a trial lawyer who was instrumental in the Watergate inquiry that led to former President Richard Nixon’s resignation, died Wednesday at age 85. Cates died of natural causes in his home in Madison, Wis. “He was probably the most magnificent trial lawyer, at least in the state of Wisconsin, during the time […]

Longtime Madison trial lawyer Richard Cates, who advised the U.S. House committee that voted to impeach President Richard Nixon in 1974, died Wednesday in Madison of natural causes. He was 85. Born in New York City, Cates served in the Marine Corps and earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College before attending law school at […]

Richard Cates, a Madison trial lawyer who historians credit with playing a critical role in the Watergate inquiry that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, died Wednesday at age 85. Cates was already a distinguished Wisconsin lawyer with more than two decades of experience as a Dane County Assistant district attorney, Wisconsin state […]

Lawyers Should Emulate Cates

The last time I was in a Dane County courtroom in the City-County Building was in late October, and former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala was pleading guilty to two felonies. As I sat in the spectator seats in Judge David Flanagan’s small courtroom, it dawned on me it might be my last time […]

Richard Lyman Cates Sr. died surrounded by family of natural causes Wednesday morning, Aug 3, 2011, in Madison, finishing his 85-year adventure that began on Nov. 22, 1925, in New York City. He was an only child, who lived almost four of his first nine years in an orphanage and spent his depression boyhood playing […]

The Plaintiff’s, Charlie Neitzel and the families of Bradley Schultz, Lianne Thomas, Lindsey Stahl, and Katrina McCorkle in the case against the City of Crandon and Forest County, Forest County Case No. 08 CV 100, will file an appeal of Circuit Court Judge Mangerson’s decision to dismiss their case. As a result of this decision, […]

The right to a trial is America’s great equalizer, protecting individuals from those with more power and influence. We should all be aware and concerned whenever this right is threatened, as we discuss in this month’s issue of You Should Know. “In suits at common law, trial by jury in civil cases is as essential […]