John C. Patzke | Attorney

John C. Patzke's legal practice has focused exclusively on the representation of employers in labor and employment matters since 1979.  His approach is to understand the law and aggressively apply it to meet client goals.  Through the years he has had the opportunity to work with a wide range of primarily private sector employers, from those who have only a handful of employees to large multi-national corporations.  The businesses he serves are in manufacturing, retail, healthcare and other service industries. 

Attorney Patzke's legal practice began with traditional labor law, using his prior experiences as intern with the National Labor Relations Board and the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to assist employers with union organizing, strikes, collective bargaining and contract administration. During his legal career John has helped employers comply with a succession of new federal, state, and local employment laws as they became implemented through the years, including the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Family & Medical Leave Act.  Today's technology oriented workplace finds John focusing clients on legal issues such as privacy and the application of industrial age wage and hour regulations to technology age businesses.

Professional Activities

Mr. Patzke has consistently received the highest Martindale Hubbell peer review rating of "AV".  John is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America and is featured in Who's Who in American Law.   He has served as subcommittee chair within the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association and is a member of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the American Bar Association, The Seventh Circuit Bar Association and the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin. He also is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Metro Milwaukee SHRM, where he has served as committee chair and as a member of the Board of Directors. John has been an Adjunct Lecturer on labor/employment law for Carroll University, has authored or co-authored a number of nationally published articles, has served on the Advisory Board of Editors for the Midwest Labor and Employment Law Journal and is a contributing writer to HR Specialist.  Attorney Patzke has presented hundreds of programs on labor and employment law across the country for the benefit of attorneys and employer representatives.

Education and Bar Admissions

John Patzke is a 1979 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School.  As an undergraduate, John attended the University of Hawaii-Manoa Valley and received a bachelor's degree in 1976 from Marquette University, magna cum laude.  John has served on the National Board of Directors for the Marquette University Alumni Association, as well as board member and president of his college alumni association at Marquette University.
 
John is admitted to practice before all Wisconsin state courts, as well as the United States District Courts for the Districts of Eastern Wisconsin, Western Wisconsin, Eastern Texas, Northern California and Northern Indiana and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits.  While much of John's work has been in Wisconsin, he has represented employer interests in courts and before agencies in over one third of American states.