On the Job

Attorney Jeff Mandell is a litigator with extensive trial and appellate experience in federal and state courts. He serves as a counselor to businesses, nonprofits, municipalities, and individuals on how best to handle litigation risk and navigate administrative regulations. Jeff co-chairs Stafford Rosenbaum’s litigation practice group and leads the firm’s teams focusing on appeals and election and political law.

Between November 2018 and October 2019, Jeff argued four cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court—more than any other private-practice lawyer in Wisconsin. Among those cases was the procedural challenge to the constitutionality of the Wisconsin Legislature’s lame-duck extraordinary session in December 2018. Jeff has litigated appeals in every district of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and in appellate courts across the country. He has also represented numerous amici before the U.S. Supreme Court, including in Murr v. Wisconsin, where he represented the Wisconsin Counties Association, the Wisconsin Towns Association, and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

For nearly a decade, Jeff has served as counsel for a defendant in a complex federal RICO case that presents novel legal, remedial, and practical issues; in that case, Jeff has been involved in five separate appeals to the D.C. Circuit, in extensive, ongoing trial court proceedings, and in several rounds of mediation.

Jeff’s law practice runs the gamut. He co-authors the treatise on the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law and regularly helps clients navigate and, where necessary, litigate issues under that statute. He also represents businesses and individuals in disputes involving contracts, torts, property, administrative law, statutory construction, bankruptcy, election/voting law, and intellectual property, as well as novel questions of state and federal constitutional law. He helped a client navigate the largest successful insurance rehabilitation in Wisconsin history, and he has successfully helped clients reverse state government contracting decisions.

Jeff is admitted to practice in Wisconsin, Illinois, and the District of Columbia, as well as before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., Second, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, Northern District of Illinois, and Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin.

Community Involvement

Jeff serves as founding president of the Madison Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society and is on the editorial board for the American Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Journal. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Aldo Leopold Nature Center, Madison’s Beth Israel Center, and the Wisconsin Equal Justice Fund. Jeff previously served on the board of the Western District of Wisconsin Bar Association.

Jeff frequently writes and speaks about the law. He posts often on the Stafford Rosenbaum Appellate Law Blog, and he has been published in the Wisconsin Law Review Forward, Wisconsin Lawyer, U.S. Law Week, and elsewhere. He contributes to several books published by the Wisconsin Bar, including as co-author of The Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law treatise. Jeff is a Fellow of both the American Bar Foundation and the Wisconsin Bar Foundation.

Education

• University of Chicago Law School (J.D.) (high honors; Order of the Coif; Law Review editorial board; moot court)
• Dorot Fellowship in Israel
• University of Texas – Austin (M.A.)
• Trinity University (B.A.)