Dean R. Dietrich, a shareholder with Weld Riley, S.C., has represented clients in the areas of lawyer ethics and professional responsibility for more than 45 years. He has represented attorneys in matters before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of Lawyer Regulation and consults with law firms and lawyers regarding compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct. Dean has served as Chair of the State Bar Committee on Professional Ethics in addition to past service on the Committee appointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review changes to the Wisconsin Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys. Dean currently serves as President of the State Bar of Wisconsin. He is a member of the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility and the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He is a graduate of Marquette University Law School.

Aviva Meridian Kaiser is Ethics Counsel at the State Bar of Wisconsin. Prior to joining the State Bar in 2013, she taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School for 25 years. She taught Professional Responsibilities, Ethical and Professional Considerations in Writing, Problem Solving, and Risk Management. From 1992 until 2002, she was the Director of the Legal Research and Writing Program. Aviva received her B.A. in Chinese from the University of Pittsburgh and her J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School. She clerked for the Honorable Louis B. Garippo in People v. John Wayne Gacy and clerked for the Honorable Maurice Perlin in the Illinois Appellate Court. She practiced law in Chicago before beginning her full-time teaching career at IIT Chicago/Kent College of Law. Aviva is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin, a Wisconsin Law Fellow, an American Bar Foundation Fellow, and a frequent speaker on matters of professional ethics. 

Ben K. Kempinen is a cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and taught at the Law School 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 supervising 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 legal education programs during the past two decades, served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Ethics 2000 Committee, and is the chair of the State Bar Ethics Committee.

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 & McCloy, in New York, and as an Assistant State Public Defender in Racine. He is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin. He is a frequent speaker on matters of professional ethics and has given hundreds of CLE presentations to a wide variety of groups on professional responsibility law. He serves as reporter for the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Ethics and writes the monthly “Ethical Dilemmas” column for the State Bar of Wisconsin. He 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.

• Understand the concept of civility as defined by the Rules of Professional Conduct
• Know how to address incivility by opposing counsel

• All lawyers
• Paralegals 
• Legal administrators 
• Law office staff