Public servant was out in front at an early age

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Rosemary Elbert has seen a lot in her nearly half-century of practice.

“I was the first woman lawyer in Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel’s office,” explains Elbert, who in 2004 also became the first permanent executive director of Wisconsin Judicare Inc. in Wausau. “The attitude of other lawyers was shock. I remember waiting outside a judge’s office, and I heard him say, ‘Do you know what the corporation counsel did? They hired a woman!’ Another attorney, who knew me, said, ‘Yes, and a very nice woman she is!’ That was the attitude then.”

Elbert herself was shocked to find out that she was only one of three women in her law school class of 1961. “I had no idea that women weren’t doing some things,” she says. “I went to a woman’s college and had the impression that women did everything.”

Always ahead of the pack, Elbert graduated from college at 17, and while working on her masters, started law school, too. The law was a natural fit for a woman raised with a strong sense of justice. “My mother had quite an interest in the legal profession,” says Elbert. “She wasn’t a lawyer, but she’d done social work and teaching. I saw that during my youth, and it seemed like an area in which there was a lot of need.”

Elbert’s career has spanned private practice, government work, and now work for indigent clients. “I was in private practice for a number of years, and I served all sorts of clients, including a large number of low-income clients,” she says. “When the opportunity came up at Judicare, I thought it would be a chance to focus more on low-income people.”

Today, Elbert works primarily on domestic violence cases, which don’t always end happily.

“Getting people out of that situation has been a very important factor in my practice,” she explains. “I’ve learned to have a certain amount of patience with clients. Domestic violence survivors will start a divorce, drop it, and then go back again. They’ll often make several tries before they get out — and it’s very tragic when you see a bad outcome.”

That makes the successes all the more rewarding.

“It’s not about the case, but the ultimate success of the client,” says Elbert. “I remember a young woman with small children who was getting a divorce, and she hadn’t finished high school. We were able to get her support, and I was happy to later see her as student-of-the-year in a local college publication. I see people who were in bad, impoverished situations who’ve been able to obtain an education, and I see them as nurses and counselors today. I’m not the only influence, but I certainly helped them get out of a bad situation and made a real difference in their lives.”

— G.M. Filisko