Cross Law Firm, S.C.

Where the firm concentrates

Workplace law makes up most of what this Milwaukee office handles, and it works both the employee side and the business side. Cross Law Firm, S.C. represents employees, executives, labor organizations, entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofit organizations and cooperatives. The firm also represents whistleblowers in claims filed across the country, which pushes its work past Wisconsin lines. That client mix signals the range of matters it takes on.

The employment practice covers termination counseling, discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, wage and hour disputes, employment contracts, severance agreements, noncompete matters, compensation claims and civil rights litigation. On the labor side, the firm represents public and private sector labor organizations in collective bargaining, arbitration and unfair labor practice proceedings. It also handles workers' compensation, disability benefits and workplace accommodation.

In my opinion, the pairing is the useful thing to note. A firm that advises both individual employees and the organizations they belong to reads the same statutes from more than one seat. The business practice adds entity formation, partnership and operating agreements, contract drafting, licensing, mergers, dissolutions and disputes among businesses or shareholders.

How the team is built

The attorneys page names seven lawyers, and their profiles show a firm that grew around its founder and widened from there. Nola J. Hitchcock Cross founded the firm and has concentrated on employment, business and civil rights law for more than 45 years. She represents workers and executives in private and public employment, and she has handled whistleblower cases under the False Claims Act.

Ben Hitchcock Cross is a Milwaukee native who has worked at Cross Law Firm since 2001. He has held administrative and management positions within the firm, so his role reaches past casework into how the office runs.

The employment and labor advisers

Mary Flanner advises on employee and employer relations. Her work includes severance agreements, noncompetes, employment contracts, compensation claims and wrongful discharge matters, and she represents clients in licensure and regulatory proceedings.

Ella Uylaki organizes and represents unions and their members. She belonged to the Employment Law Society at Marquette Law School and interned with the National Labor Relations Board in Milwaukee, where her work included investigating unfair labor practice complaints and preparing reports on local labor matters.

Backgrounds beyond the law degree

Two of the profiles describe careers that started outside legal practice. Tiffany Mitchell represents whistleblowers in matters involving fraud, retaliation and corporate or government misconduct. Before that she worked as an investigative and intelligence analyst across government agencies, the financial sector and the military, with more than a decade in fraud prevention, regulatory compliance and investigations.

B. Harper Dickerson handles discrimination matters involving sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, age and religion. His work also covers sexual harassment claims and False Claims Act cases, and he investigates fraud allegations and pursues qui tam actions.

David Ferguson represents public and private sector employees in organizing, negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation. He handles retaliation, discrimination, wage, hour, workplace safety and noncompete matters, and his practice extends to healthcare worker retaliation, employer wage and hour defense, partnerships and microbusiness questions.

Employment, labor and civil rights work

Several attorneys list the same handful of areas, and that overlap shows where the daily work concentrates. Discrimination, retaliation, wage and hour disputes and noncompete matters come up in more than one profile. When more than one lawyer at a firm works the same ground, a client's matter can move between hands without leaving the building.

Employment cases in Wisconsin often run on two tracks at once. A discrimination or retaliation claim can start with an administrative charge before a state or federal agency, and it may move into court when the agency process leaves the dispute open. Timing matters at this stage, because the deadline to file a charge is short and counted from the date of the harm. Wage and hour claims turn on records: hours worked, rates paid and how the job is classified. Noncompete disputes usually come down to how the agreement is worded and whether its limits on time, geography and scope hold up under Wisconsin law.

Civil rights and union matters

Civil rights litigation sits close to this employment work. Cases about race, sex, age, disability and related protected categories often reach federal court and turn on the same evidence: emails, personnel files, pay records and the accounts of coworkers. B. Harper Dickerson's profile lists the full run of protected categories, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, age and religion, which points to a lawyer who handles this ground regularly.

The labor practice sits next to this work. Collective bargaining, arbitration and unfair labor practice proceedings run under their own rules and timelines, and a union matter can move between the bargaining table, an arbitrator and a labor board within a single dispute. Ella Uylaki's NLRB internship gives the firm a lawyer who has seen that agency work from the inside, and David Ferguson's profile adds organizing, negotiation and mediation to the labor column.

Whistleblower and False Claims Act cases

Whistleblower matters thread through several of the profiles, and the firm represents whistleblowers in claims filed across the country. The founder has represented clients in these cases for more than 45 years, and both Tiffany Mitchell and B. Harper Dickerson name qui tam and False Claims Act work in their profiles.

The firm lists the kinds of fraud it takes on: health care fraud, Medicare and Medicaid billing fraud, pharmaceutical and medical device fraud, tax fraud, securities matters and defense contractor fraud. These are federal cases with a particular shape. A qui tam action lets a private person file suit on behalf of the government and, if the case succeeds, share in what the government recovers. The complaint is filed under seal while the government decides whether to join, so a matter can stay quiet for a long stretch before it becomes public.

Why the investigative backgrounds fit

Health care and billing fraud make up a large part of this docket for many firms, and the cases tend to hinge on documents: claims data, coding records and internal communications. That is patient work, and it rewards a team that can read a paper trail. Tiffany Mitchell's years as an investigative and intelligence analyst and B. Harper Dickerson's fraud investigations line up with what these matters ask for.

As a reviewer, I read the combination of a 45 year founder and two lawyers with investigative careers as the firm's clearest throughline. False Claims Act work runs on documentation and patience, and the profiles point to people used to both.

The business and benefits side

Alongside the employee-facing work, Cross Law Firm keeps a business practice. It covers entity formation, partnership and operating agreements, contract drafting, licensing, mergers, dissolutions and disputes involving businesses or shareholders. The client list here runs to entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and cooperatives.

David Ferguson's profile mentions partnerships and microbusiness matters, and Mary Flanner's covers licensure and regulatory proceedings, so the business work connects back to the employment lawyers. The firm also handles workers' compensation, disability benefits and workplace accommodation. Those matters follow their own claim procedures and medical evidence rules, which is one more body of law the office keeps in hand.

Business formation work tends to front-load the decisions that prevent later fights. The choice of entity, the operating or partnership agreement and the terms for bringing in or buying out an owner all get set at the start, and clear drafting there can keep a company out of court. The firm's list of dissolutions and shareholder disputes shows the other end of that arc, when the early agreements get tested.

Offices across Wisconsin

Cross Law Firm lists offices in Milwaukee, Waukesha and Appleton. Its public profiles include Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages for anyone who wants to follow its updates.

Three offices across the state give the firm more than one point of contact for clients in different regions.Milwaukee places the firm in a major legal market in the state, Waukesha reaches the western suburbs, and Appleton extends coverage into the Fox Valley to the north. For employment and labor clients, that geography can matter, since a workplace dispute is often tied to where the employer and the work sit.

For a reader weighing the firm, the record on its own pages is concrete. It names seven attorneys, three Wisconsin offices, and a founder with more than 45 years in employment and whistleblower law. The firm's work spans union representation, qui tam litigation and business formation. The site does not list a founding year.