Faculty
B. K. Kempinen
B. K. Kempinen is a cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and taught there from 1976 until his retirement in January of 2018. In addition to teaching the first-year criminal law curriculum and a number of related courses (trial advocacy, professional responsibilities, and advanced substantive criminal law), Prof. Kempinen was involved in several of the Law School’s clinical programs, including serving as interim director of the Legal Defense Project; working as a supervisory attorney in the Frank J. Remington Center’s Legal Assistance to Institutionalized Persons Project (LAIP); and, from 1990 until his retirement, acting as director of the Remington Center’s Prosecution Project.
Prof. Kempinen has also been involved in both trial and appellate litigation in the criminal law area, has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, has participated in a variety of conferences and continuing education programs during the past two decades, and is the Chair of the State Bar Ethics Committee.
Timothy J. Pierce
Timothy J. Pierce has been Ethics Counsel for the State Bar of Wisconsin since 2004. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his law degree, cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Mr. Pierce was previously a Deputy Director at the Office of Lawyer Regulation in Milwaukee and Madison. He has also been employed as the Ethics Administrator for Milbank, Hadley, Tweed & McCoy in New York, and as an Assistant State Public Defender in Racine. He is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin.
Mr. Pierce is a frequent speaker on matters of professional ethics and has given hundreds of CLE presentation to a wide variety of groups on professional responsibility law. He serves as a reporter for the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Ethics and writes the monthly “Ethical Dilemmas” column in the State Bar’s Wisconsin Lawyer magazine. Mr. Pierce has also taught Professional Responsibilities at the University of Wisconsin Law School since 2011 and currently serves as a Volunteer Subject Matter Expert for the MPRE.