Murphy Desmond S.C.

Focus and practice areas

Murphy Desmond S.C. is a Wisconsin law firm that handles both business matters and personal legal work. The business side covers business law, startup and entrepreneur services, business succession planning, mergers and acquisitions, and collection law. Creditors' rights work sits alongside business bankruptcy and commercial litigation.

On the personal side, the firm handles divorce and family law, grandparents' rights, and adult guardianships. Estate planning and probate are listed, along with revocable and irrevocable trusts. The firm also takes on probate, estate, trust and fiduciary litigation, which is the contested version of that same subject area.

The remaining areas spread across employment and labor law, immigration law, tax law, and white collar criminal defense. Real estate work includes land use and construction, and the firm lists eminent domain as a separate area. Environmental law with renewable energy, municipal law, and administrative and regulatory law round out the public-facing side.

Dispute resolution and professional defense

The firm offers alternative dispute resolution through mediation and arbitration. Attorneys also defend licensed professionals, which covers matters where a person's credential to practice is at stake.

As a reviewer, the breadth here reads as a full-service model built for a client who may need several of these at once. A business owner going through a divorce, for example, can find both matters handled inside the same firm. That structure matters most when the facts of one case touch the other.

Where the firm works

Murphy Desmond keeps four offices in Wisconsin: Madison, Janesville, Appleton and Dodgeville.Madison has a larger market than the other three and sits at the center of state government and the court system. Janesville and Dodgeville reach into southern and southwestern Wisconsin.

Appleton extends the firm north into the Fox Valley. Four locations across a single state gives the firm coverage of areas that differ a good deal in economy and caseload. Municipal law and eminent domain work in particular tends to follow local government activity, and a spread like this puts attorneys near those clients.

The firm offers services in Spanish. For immigration matters that is a practical point, since much of the work involves reading documents and explaining process to a client whose first language may not be English.

How the team is built

Ginger Zimmerman is President and Managing Shareholder. Robert B.L. Murphy founded the firm, and it maintains the Robert B.L. Murphy Legacy Circle under his name.

The firm names a number of attorneys on its site: David M. Gorwitz, Ruth Westmont, Dan McGarry, Gretchen Burgess, Sarah DeKraay, Matt Fleming, Lane Rideout, Mario Mendoza, Axel Candelaria Rivera and Walter Stewart. That is a roster with enough people to staff the range of practice areas the firm lists.

A firm carrying more than twenty practice areas needs depth in each. In my opinion the useful question for a prospective client is which attorney handles the specific matter at hand, and the firm's own attorney pages are where that gets answered.

Ninety-five years of operation

Murphy Desmond opened its doors in April 1931. The firm marked its 95th anniversary in 2026.

That is a long run for any business, and it covers the Depression, the postwar expansion of Wisconsin's economy, and every shift in state law since. A firm that old has seen its practice areas change shape several times. Immigration law and renewable energy work, both on the current list, did not exist in anything like their present form in 1931.

Longevity of that kind carries a plain signal: the firm has kept enough clients, year after year, to stay open. It says nothing about the outcome of any particular case. It does say the firm has institutional memory of how Wisconsin courts and agencies operate.

What the listed practice areas involve

Some context on how these matters generally proceed may help a reader judge whether the firm's list matches their situation. The descriptions below are general, not claims about how Murphy Desmond handles any specific case.

Family and divorce matters

Wisconsin divorce cases run through circuit court. Property division starts from a presumption of equal split, and the parties exchange financial disclosure early. Custody and placement decisions turn on the child's welfare, and courts often appoint a guardian ad litem to represent that interest separately from either parent.

Grandparents' rights cases are narrower. A grandparent seeking visitation must generally show the relationship is in the child's interest and work within statutory limits on who may petition. Adult guardianship petitions go before the court with medical evidence about the person's capacity, and the court appoints counsel for the individual whose rights are at issue.

Immigration work

Immigration matters run through federal agencies rather than state courts. Family petitions, employment-based filings and status adjustments go to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Removal proceedings go before an immigration judge in the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Timelines depend heavily on the category and the applicant's country of origin, and much of the attorney work is document assembly and evidence gathering.

White collar defense

White collar criminal defense often begins before any charge is filed. A client may first learn of a matter through a subpoena, an agency inquiry or a target letter. Cases can involve fraud, tax charges, or regulatory violations, and they turn on documents more than testimony. Federal sentencing guidelines shape the negotiating posture in many of these matters.

Defense of licensed professionals

Licensing matters go before state boards rather than courts. A complaint against a doctor, accountant, engineer or attorney triggers an administrative process with its own rules of evidence and its own appeal path. The stakes are the license itself, which makes these proceedings distinct from civil litigation over money.

What the record shows

The firm publishes its practice area list, its four office locations, its founding date and the names of its attorneys. It identifies its founder and its current President and Managing Shareholder. It states that Spanish-language services are available.

For a client weighing options, the firm's clearest documented features are its age, its geographic spread within Wisconsin, and the width of its practice list. Murphy Desmond opened in April 1931 and operates from Madison, Janesville, Appleton and Dodgeville.