Arellano seeks to help 'underdogs'

Victor M. Arellano Lawton & Cates S.C.

Go ahead. Make his day.

Adopt a sarcastic tone, and ask Madison lawyer Victor M. Arellano, “What are you doing with this case? Your client is a loser.”

Arellano, of Lawton & Cates S.C., is used to it. He frequently has represented clients he prefers to refer to as “underdogs” over the course of his 22-year legal career.
When people disparage his clients, it never discourages him. If anything, it has the opposite effect, motivating him to use magnum force for his clients’ causes, and above all, for the restoration of their dignity.

Slam-dunk cases bore Arellano. He only takes on challenging matters with clients whom he believes in 100 percent. About those clients: They’re a diverse lot. They are Democrats and Republicans, migrant workers and business owners.

Among his most famous clients — or infamous, to some — was Marilyn Figueroa, a former Milwaukee city employee who had accused then-Mayor John Norquist of sexual harassment in 2000.

Two years later, the case was resolved for two settlements: $375,000 from the city, to be repaid by Norquist, and another settlement for a confidential sum.

“It was a case that took me to the test,” Arellano says. “We sued the most powerful man in Wisconsin.

“When I first heard her story, even I couldn’t believe it,” he continues. “I knew the case would be expensive, because we’d be suing someone who would fight us, outspend us and use every imaginable political tool. They had the press at their disposal, and credibility. And who was my client? Just some woman making incredible allegations.

“But I said to myself, ‘This is what I went to law school for, and I’m not going to let them win.’ The case was truly a test of the democratic values that we profess to the world, and I’m glad I took it on.”

While many of Arellano’s previous cases were high profile, none compared to this, with reporters on their heels at every turn.

Another unusual twist to the case was that it was set for trial before an administrative law judge in the Equal Rights Division, rather than before a jury.

	Law School: University of Wisconsin; Antioch School of Law, Washington D.C. 1984 Practice Areas: Litigation: employment, personal injury, family and international adoptions, immigration, constitutional law, Mexican law Achievement: Arellano is an energetic advocate for the underdog, having successfully represented hundreds of clients facing tough odds in their legal battles, including Marilyn Figueroa in her sexual harassment suit against former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist.

And, had it gone to trial, it would’ve been a battle of credibility, regarding highly personal matters. “Every time a woman makes a claim of sexual harassment or rape, she is subjected to intense scrutiny and it’s not fun. She was questioned about every aspect of her life,” he recalls.

“The biggest problem in the case was not so much our opponent, but the constant attempts to try to reduce my client to nothing.”

In another, more recent victory for Arellano, his client, Barb Linton, was a Democrat-turned-Republican who ran for a seat in the Wisconsin Assembly. Changing party alliances had caused some hard feelings, and when Linton attempted to distribute campaign literature at Ashland’s Bay Days celebration in July 2004, Mayor Fred Schnook, a supporter of her opponent in the election, stopped her.

Last May, a federal court jury awarded Linton $3,000 after finding Schnook violated her First Amendment rights. That sum reimbursed her for the cost of the campaign materials alone, as Linton had waived compensatory damages.

More importantly, Arellano says Linton was made whole when the court later awarded her $122,000 in fees.

At the age of 17, Arellano arrived in Wisconsin from Leon, Mexico as an exchange student in Bonduel, Wis. He arrived with the equivalent of $40 in his pocket and a guitar – part of what motivated him to come was his passion for American music.

He now confesses, “I don’t think the guitar was mine.”

The only English he knew initially was from songs, although he had no idea what the words meant. He largely taught himself the language and eventually attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on a scholarship.

After college, he worked for the state migrant worker bureau, and soon became an advocate for their rights. He organized and participated in countless demonstrations. These often culminated with an authority figure of some sort telling him that, while their cause seemed just, there was nothing to be done because “that’s the law.”

So Arellano decided he needed to study the law so he could change it.

Post law school, he was drawn to Lawton & Cates due to its reputation “for fighting the big fights,” he says.

Now a shareholder and vice-president of the firm, Arellano has done plenty of that over the years. “My goal has always just been to level the playing field, so the worker I represent will always feel that his lawyer is just as prepared as the lawyer on the other side from the big firm representing the big corporation.”

“I’m a litigator. It’s what I do. I love my life. I just wish that I could live forever. And if I ever stop, I’ll miss it.”

- Jane Pribek

http://www.madison.com/crbj/200509/index.php?ntid=52316

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