Features

Campus News

Alumni Notes

Definition of
excellence

 


INSIDE ARCHIVE


Marketing and
University Communication
UW-Green Bay, CL 815
2420 Nicolet Drive
Green Bay, WI 54311-7001
(920) 465-2214

E-mail: matzken@uwgb.edu

Rev. May 13, 2008

 

Successful attorney lays down the law for next generation

Tim Nixon '87
Commercial, business law
Partner, Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.
Green Bay
Hometown: Two Rivers
UW-Green Bay Major: Public and Environmental Administration
Law School: University of Wisconsin '90

Over two decades, Green Bay attorney Tim Nixon has built a thriving practice with clients nationwide, an exceedingly impressive resume, a list of awards, community achievements and legal accomplishments a mile long…
      And yet, when all is said and done, some of his most rewarding moments might have occurred only recently — and are, in fact, likely to reoccur this fall — in a classroom at UW-Green Bay.
      Nixon teaches the University’s course in administrative law. He has been an ad hoc instructor for eight years.
      “There’s something about going back to your undergraduate institution, looking out at the students and engaging them in discussion,” he says. “It’s like closing a loop.
      “I get a tremendous kick, when we’re covering difficult material, of seeing the lights go on when they ‘get it.’ I understand why cartoonists used to draw light bulbs above people’s heads.  You can actually see it. They just light up with ideas.”
      Nixon’s students quickly learn at least two things. One, he believes fervently the American legal system, though often bashed, is unique, strong and most often effective. Two, he is an enthusiastic, outgoing fan of his alma mater.
      Occasionally, a student will wander up to Nixon and innocently inquire, “Can you get into law school from here?” Can you? Prepare for his favorite lecture.
      “I tell them, ‘Listen, I travel widely and my degree has cachet everywhere I go.  UW-Green Bay doesn’t have a football team, but it does have an excellent academic plan. Princeton, Yale… if you go on to any law school you’ll hold your own with anybody. The professors here are as good as any you’ll encounter… the hands-on opportunities and community projects are first-rate.”
      He speaks from experience. He attended the UW Manitowoc Center and the Great Lakes Maritime Academy before pursuing his bachelor’s. (His pilot license and years aboard Great Lakes ore freighters provided additional maturity and perspective.) By the time he finished at UW-Green Bay, having done out-of-classroom research on emergency management, bus routes and solid-waste issues, he was sold.
      Today, you’ll find his name on numerous “best lawyers” lists both state and national. He’s a prolific author and frequent speaker on bankruptcy and financial restructuring. He has given back to the community through service on school boards, the chamber of commerce, the water commission and more.
      A lot of it, he says, ties back to things he first learned in college.
      “Cost-benefit analysis, in all its different forms, is something we’re doing all the time,” Nixon says. “And organizational theory – that’s far and away the single most useful thing I’ve ever studied. How human beings relate to one another in an organization.”
      Other take-aways from his undergraduate days:  Problem-solving skills. The theory of stochastic process (that there’s a degree of randomness in all complex systems). Dan Alesch was a favorite professor.
      His specialty: Nixon works with financially distressed companies. Maybe they’ve lost a big contract, suffered a major setback. “We try to keep it from failing, or make the crash landing as comfortable as possible, so people can pick up the pieces and move forward… I love looking at a company that is now highly successful, but when I was brought in they were about to close their doors… If we do thing’s right, nobody has to notice.”
      Not many trials: The key thing, Nixon says, is that all parties know what everyone’s legal rights are: “Then we don’t need to go to court.”  Parties might go to court for a “mini-trial,” a ruling on a particular piece of law, a very specific issue.
      Laughter is best medicine: At Nixon’s firm, people laugh a lot. It’s fast-moving with plenty of stress, but the effect is a little like the old TV show M*A*S*H*, with humor and serious business going hand-in-hand. “It’s also,” Nixon adds, “a little like charging headlong off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote used to do. He never fell until he stopped running and looked down. I tell people here, ‘keep running, don’t look down’.”


Click here to download a PDF file of the entire May 2008 issue of Inside magazine.