Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols S.C.

Focus and practice areas

The firm presents itself as a business and corporate law practice in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its work splits into two groups: litigation and transactional matters. That structure lets Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols represent Wisconsin business owners and executives on both the disputes that reach a courtroom and the deals that close in an office.

The litigation group covers a wide set of commercial problems. The firm lists antitrust, appellate work, bankruptcy and creditor's rights, business and corporate disputes, construction defects, employment disputes and non-competes, environmental matters, products liability and torts, and professional liability defense. The same group handles insurance coverage and bad faith claims. In my opinion, that spread reads like a firm built to take on most of what a commercial client brings through the door.

Commercial litigation of this kind usually moves through familiar stages. A complaint sets out the claim, both sides exchange documents and take depositions, and the case turns on motions before it reaches a trial or a settlement. A firm that lists appellate work next to its trial areas can carry a matter into the next court if a ruling goes to appeal.

The transactional side

The transactional group is just as varied. It covers banking and financial institutions, business and corporate matters, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, securities, tax, estate planning, health care, intellectual property, and sports, media, and entertainment. A company often needs several of these at once as it grows, and the firm lists them together.

Deal work runs on a different clock from litigation. A merger or acquisition moves through due diligence, drafting, and closing, and the tax and securities questions often decide how the deal is structured. Real estate and estate planning matters bring in their own documents and filings. Having those areas in one firm lets a client keep the same counsel as a transaction touches several of them at once.

How the team is built

The firm organizes its lawyers as shareholders, associate attorneys, and one of counsel. The S.C. after the name marks a Wisconsin service corporation, so the shareholders who practice there also own the firm. That ownership model is common among established professional practices in the state.

The site names ten shareholders: Joseph E. Tierney III, Thomas J. Nichols, Randal J. Brotherhood, Michael J. Cohen, Adam J. Tutaj, Pamela J. Tillman, Mark D. Malloy, Scott T. Reigle, Jacob A. Sosnay, and James M. Sosnoski. Two of those surnames, Tierney and Nichols, also appear in the firm name. Two associate attorneys, Jaclyn C. Kallie and Alexander C. Lemke, complete the listed roster.

A shareholder group of that size points to depth across the practice areas the firm names. The attorney page gives names and titles, so a client would match a specific lawyer to a specific matter during a first meeting.

Longevity and a downtown base

The firm traces its history to 1848 and has kept its practice in downtown Milwaukee since then. On its home page it marks 175 years of experience. A continuous run of that length is uncommon for an American law firm, and it places the firm inside Milwaukee's legal community for well over a century and a half.

Its offices occupy the 19th and 20th floors of an office tower in the Associated Bank River Center complex. That puts the firm in the city's central business district, close to the banks and corporate offices that anchor downtown Milwaukee.

For a client, a firm's long tenure in one city can matter in practical ways. Familiarity with local courts, opposing counsel, and Wisconsin practice tends to build up over decades in the same place. The firm gives its 1848 start and its 175-year mark a prominent place on its home page.

Insurance coverage and bad faith claims

Coverage disputes turn on the exact words of a policy: whether a given loss falls inside what the insurer agreed to pay. Bad faith claims ask a further question, which is whether the insurer handled a valid claim the way the law requires. The firm's litigation group handles both.

These matters often begin with a denied or delayed claim and a policyholder who wants a second read of the contract. They can involve the insurer's own file, the adjuster's notes, and the record of how the claim moved over time. As a reviewer, I note that a firm carrying this work next to a full commercial docket can weigh a coverage fight with an eye on both the business and the insurance sides.

Coverage and bad faith questions also reach companies that buy insurance for their operations, not only individual policyholders. A business fighting a denied claim on a commercial policy draws on much of the same analysis, and a firm with corporate clients already understands the contracts behind that coverage.

What the site sets out

Taken together, the picture is a mid-sized Milwaukee firm that works with business clients across a long list of litigation and transactional needs. The two practice groups, the shareholder-led structure, and the 1848 start date are the facts the firm puts forward on its own site.

Those facts describe a long-running downtown firm with twelve named attorneys and a business and corporate focus. The litigation and transactional groups cover the areas listed above, and the roster holds ten shareholders, two associate attorneys, and one of counsel.