On the Job
Attorney Kyle Engelke is partner in the Madison office at Stafford Rosenbaum LLP. Kyle’s passion is courtroom practice. However, a client should hear what they need to know about their legal dispute – both the good and bad – long before a judge or jury passes judgment. Kyle’s job is to assess the risk created by a client’s conflict and manage the legal uncertainty they face. His trial practice includes commercial litigation, tort and civil rights defense, personal injury matters and wrongful death claims, regulatory utility law and municipal prosecution. Regardless of the matter, Kyle believes it is his job to earn his client’s trust, and that every client deserves an advocate who is both responsive and understanding of the demands (and costs) legal disputes create for the client.
Trial practice requires storytelling, and Kyle enjoys all aspects of building a trial record. Kyle’s experience includes handling all aspects of trial practice – from jury trials and witness examination to motion practice, depositions, discovery and case assessment and budgeting. Kyle’s frequent briefing experience includes successfully dismissing a mass tort claim for carbon monoxide poisoning at a hockey rink and authoring an amicus brief on behalf of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities addressing Wisconsin’s governmental immunity law – a matter Kyle also argued before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
In state court, Kyle frequently defends municipalities against claims ranging from negligence and violations of Wisconsin’s Safe Place Law to nuisance and defamation. In federal court, Kyle has appeared defending municipalities against civil rights claims alleging excessive force and fair housing violations, in addition to claims brought under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for environmental cleanup costs. Kyle has handled numerous cases seeking emergency injunctions against municipalities, and he has had extensive trial experience prosecuting civil forfeiture cases on behalf of municipalities varying from speeding tickets to first-offense drunk driving violations.
Kyle’s commercial litigation experience includes fair dealership claims, corporate control contests, whistleblower claims involving misappropriation of trade secrets, defending class actions alleging professional liability arising from financial investments and multi-state statutory fraud claims involving administration of Wisconsin’s Medicaid program. Kyle also co-authors the Wisconsin Bar Association’s publications on Trade Secrets and Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations.
On a smaller scale, Kyle has helped personal injury claimants and insureds successfully reach settlement by convincing insurance companies to reverse their denials of coverage – even where a former attorney has withdrawn from representation due to an insurance denial. During law school, Kyle also participated in the Wisconsin Innocence Project and briefed the Court of Appeals in a published decision that affirmed the granting of a new trial to a client who had spent nearly 20 years imprisoned.
Kyle is admitted to practice law in Wisconsin, the Eastern and Western District Courts of Wisconsin, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.
Professional Recognition and Awards
- Selected as a Wisconsin Rising Star by Super Lawyers (2018-2019).
- Selected as an Up and Coming Lawyer by Wisconsin Law Journal (2016).
Publications
- Co-author, Trade Secrets chapter, Wisconsin Attorney’s Desk Reference (2017-present)
- Co -author, Tortious Interference with Contractual Relations, Law of Damages (2018)
Education
- University of Wisconsin Law School (J.D., 2013)
- Symposium Editor and Senior Board member for the Wisconsin International Law Journal
- Coach and participant in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Vienna, Austria
- University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.A. Journalism and International Studies, 2008)
Professional Memberships and Activities
- Dane County Bar Association – President-Elect and Board of Directors
- American Bar Association
- State Bar of Wisconsin – Appointed Bench and Bar Committee June 2018
- James E. Doyle American Inn of Court
