John
Skilton
Nominated by Beth Richlen
"Attorney John Skilton is a partner with Perkins Coie LLP in Madison, Wisconsin and has 55 years of experience as a litigator and inspirational leader. He is a litigation attorney who is continuing his long years of service to legal associations and organizations and has litigated numerous pro bono cases involving civil rights and constitutional issues.
In 1994, while serving as the Wisconsin state bar president, he established the Commission on Delivery of Legal Services to look for ways to improve the delivery of legal services to the poor. The commission did its work during a time when the U.S. House of Representatives had voted to cut Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding by one-third and a combination of depressed interest rates and bank fees had reduced IOLTA funds from $1.7 million annually to $812,000. The commission concluded that Wisconsin's civil legal service programs were so grossly underfunded that they served only a fraction of low-income people needing legal assistance. More importantly, the commission concluded that Wisconsin lawyers had fallen far behind their colleagues in other states in which the private bar was successfully implementing different strategies to raise funds for legal services. One of the commission’s recommendations was to form the Equal Justice Coalition (EJC).
Skilton initiated the EJC with the help of other lawyers around the state and they established the initial contributions from the large law firms and spawned the fundraising concept from there. Now called the Wisconsin Equal Justice Fund, the annual campaign raises almost $500,000 annually and created an endowment fund of 2.5 million that is still growing.
He has risen to the occasion time and time again to argue for equal access to justice on behalf of Wisconsin residents. In 2005, he provided pro bono representation to the Wisconsin Trust Account Foundation in their petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to create the Public Interest Lawyer Fund. In his remarks to the court, he argued passionately against fierce opposition, for equal justice under the law and its commandment that all lawyers and judges be guided always by the obligation to provide access to justice for all. The Wisconsin Equal Justice Fund, since its inception has been the largest consistent source of funding for civil legal aid in Wisconsin.
Over his decades of practice, he has held many positions, including president not only of the State Bar (1995-1996), but also of such organizations as the Wisconsin Equal Justice Coalition, the Wisconsin Law Foundation, the Wisconsin Law Alumni Association, the Western District Bar and the Seventh Circuit Bar. Skilton is dedicated to service to these associations due to his ideas about what it means to be a lawyer. Organized bar associations are vehicles for lawyers to contribute their services to the public and clients. And such service is something required of those who are lawyers. “I’ve always viewed it as consistent with being a lawyer,” Skilton has said."
