Evan Goyke’s office is just across the hall from Milwaukee Department of Public Works headquarters in the Zeidler Municipal Building. But his neighbor agency’s sanitation workers couldn’t help him clean up the mess that he inherited.
As Milwaukee’s new city attorney, Goyke is on a mission to turn around an office ravaged by four years of continuous scandals under his predecessor, Tearman Spencer – including criminal charges filed against both Spencer and a top deputy.
Former employees told Milwaukee Magazine in 2021 that Spencer had created a toxic work environment of fear and harassment, sending dozens of lawyers fleeing and leaving the crucial office understaffed as it struggled to represent city agencies and the Milwaukee Public Schools. Spencer also hired a deputy city attorney who was prosecuted for covering up outside legal work.
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Despite Spencer’s denials, voters threw him out on April 2. Goyke won with 63% of the vote to Spencer’s 36%, the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent chief lawyer in at least 40 years. After that historic repudiation, Spencer left without the niceties of a professional transition, Goyke says.
On Oct. 2, prosecutors charged Spencer with felony misconduct in public office for allegedly using his position to try to block city inspections of a building where his car collection was stored. He also was charged with misdemeanor obstruction for his responses to an investigator’s questions.
Goyke, 41, has been a Democratic state legislator since 2013, after 2½ years as a public defender. He took office in his new job as the city faced legal questions surrounding protests and security measures for July’s Republican National Convention. His staff provided advice as MPS grappled with a financial meltdown and leadership shakeup, the Housing Authority confronted accusations of mismanagement and the Election Commission prepared for a pivotal November election.
Goyke’s goal is not simply to undo the damage that Spencer wrought, but to build his office back into the kind of “world-class law firm” that Spencer’s long-serving predecessor, Grant Langley, used to boast about. Two months into his term, Goyke spoke with Milwaukee Magazine about his progress and his goals, then followed up after the convention.
How is your new job going so far?
What I tell my family and friends when they ask: “I am absolutely going to love this job a year from now.” The first two months have been a whirlwind. I have a tremendous amount to learn. I have learned a tremendous amount in two months. The days go by incredibly fast. The people are incredibly kind and supportive and passionate. It has been an incredibly rewarding two months.
How do you plan to remake the City Attorney’s office into a “world-class law firm”?
We have great people here. We are capable and will restore that reputation. I think what was missing was having a leader [who] has that expectation. I also try to lead by example – punch the clock, show up day in and day out, handle things day in and day out. It’s about the culture in the office. That starts at the top.
When I started, the first week I was in the office, I could tell that there was a lack of communication and trust and belief in one another. And I can tell, two months later, that that is all improving. It [was] never that the quality of the lawyers that were here was the problem. It started at the top, which is obviously why I ran.
Was it that simple – just change the person at the top?
We are always going to be working at this. It’s not a finite destination [that] you reach and then you sit on your laurels. We have several months to a year before we’re really firing on all cylinders. It was really difficult for the administration under my predecessor to take a breath and really assess skills, strengths, weaknesses, background, desire, etc., and match people to where they’ll be most successful, and that’s what we’re endeavoring to do. Some of our assignments are incredibly niche. We’ve got over 50 different areas of representation.
Did your predecessor help at all in the transition?
We did not have a transition in a traditional sense of the word. I didn’t have the chance to sit down with him after the election or before taking office. We’ve just kind of created our own path. Obviously there are two sides of that equation. I did not reach out to him. He did not reach out to me. So I take equal blame for that not happening.
And how have you been learning the ropes?
One of the first things I asked of my staff was to meet with me one-on-one for about an hour. That’s about 60 staff members total. I’ve completed that. What I’m doing now is shadowing each of the various sections that we have, support staff and lawyers. I have a management team that I meet with daily. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some of Grant’s former deputies, to Grant himself. Other than that, it’s just jump right in, try to be a member of the team and take on work individually where I can.
Why did you accompany the marchers protesting the RNC?
One of the roles our office played in the RNC was advising law enforcement and city [officials] and protecting First Amendment rights and ensuring public safety. Sometimes in events like this, you have a very narrow line between those competing interests.
We thought it was important to be visible and communicative to individuals expressing their First Amendment rights, as well as with law enforcement. You can’t do that from behind a screen. You’ve got to be out there. In the largest demonstration during the RNC, it went without major incident, which we were really proud of. (Goyke declined to comment on the subsequent shooting of Milwaukeean Samuel Sharpe by out-of-town officers outside the security perimeter.)
What’s your next priority?
I want to rebuild some of the services that existed previously, primarily addressing needs and issues [like] nuisance properties and public safety and reckless driving, issues that we haven’t been prioritizing or haven’t been able to prioritize under the previous administration.
There was a time [when] this office was heavily involved in nuisance property abatement, with neighborhood safety meetings, addressing some of the chronic issues that plague neighborhoods. We had what was then called the Community Prosecution Unit that would address some of those issues, really informed by the residents of Milwaukee themselves, and we’re going to be looking to restore that in the months ahead.
Why was that unit disbanded?
It really was the result of vacancies being unfilled and the positions that were filled needing to focus on core legal services. So part of it is filling those vacancies. There were a number of vacancies, half a dozen lawyers or more. Those positions were vacant for some time, and there wasn’t capacity to take on services beyond those core functions.
What can your office do about reckless driving?
As of this conversation, I don’t have a proposal on paper ready to go. I need to meet with additional players in city and county government. We do have a “top 10 most wanted list” of repeat violators. I think what we’d like to do is narrowly target our intervention to those [who] have shown the most egregious and repeated behavior.
We’re working to be prepared with that information of who these individuals are, what their driving histories are, what they currently owe as fines and forfeitures, but I’m going to need additional collaboration from other units of government. That is very high up on my to-do list.
Because of a dispute between Spencer and the Common Council, this office is no longer required to review city contracts. Do you want to revisit that?
I think so. I have been working hard to restore our office’s relationship and trust with our clients. One of those clients is the council. I’ve been as active as I could be with council members when they’re seeking input and advice. I think we’ve done a good job of meeting their expectations. I don’t have that as a No. 1 priority, but my goal is to earn it back.
What other challenges do you face in restoring trust in this office?
We can’t do all of it all at once. I don’t want to overpromise. I want to make sure that we are meeting our obligations, providing that world-class service to our clients. I don’t view everything that happened in the last four years as something to throw away. I don’t devalue the contributions of the lawyers that Mr. Spencer hired while he was city attorney. If we adopted a good practice, let’s keep the good practice. Here’s a very small example: How we receive assignments, when we’re asked a question from a client — we did not do that electronically. We had paper files. We got rid of that system. I am not going back to a paper file system. It was a good change. I’m not going to just undo that simply because it was adopted by my predecessor. We are getting new case management software. That’s how we track and retain documents, court filings, etc. That database has long ago exceeded its life expectancy. Again, this is something that Mr. Spencer initiated. I don’t want to stop that progress just because Mr. Spencer started it. This is something that needs to be done, so we’re going to do it.
Why did you keep your seat in the Assembly after you were elected city attorney?
I don’t think I envisioned that happening when I first announced [my candidacy] for city attorney in December of 2022. Given the current gerrymandered legislative maps in Wisconsin, the Republicans hold a supermajority in the state Senate and a near-supermajority in the state Assembly.
And then in between my announcement and this conversation, I have had colleagues [who] have been elected to positions that they must resign [from the Assembly] under the law. So that margin for upholding the governor’s veto is now zero. If I were to resign, that would give the [GOP] legislative majority carte blanche to write whatever laws that they like, and the governor could veto them and they could simply override those vetos. I am not willing to give [Assembly Speaker] Robin Vos the keys to our democracy.
Are you collecting both paychecks?
I am. I check in with my legislative office. We try to do lunchtime calls and as much communication as we can in the evenings. There are days when I go to Madison. I’ve been called in for a couple of committee hearings. I’m still doing both jobs.
Do you think you’re going to stay in this job for a while?
I hope so. This office has not been a steppingstone for other or higher offices [in the past 80 years]. My job is to master this role, to be great at this job, to run an incredible firm, and that is enough for me. It will take time to do that. I am not looking at other offices on the horizon. I have no intention of running for something else in four years.
I just want to be the best city attorney I can be. I’m not foreclosing running for something else in the future, but I am happy to be here and committed to taking the time – expressed in years, not months – to really master this and be the best I possibly can.
For the four years Tearman Spencer was Milwaukee city attorney, lawyers were leaving his office faster than he could hire replacements.
During his term, turnover among deputy and assistant city attorneys exceeded 100%, with 44 departures from a staff with only 39 lawyer jobs. And that staff actually became less diverse under the first Black city attorney than his white predecessor had left it.
When Spencer defeated nine-term incumbent Grant Langley in April 2020, the office was staffed by four deputy city attorneys and 33 assistant city attorneys, with two assistant vacancies, according to data from the city Department of Employee Relations.
Amid accusations of a toxic work environment and sexual harassment, all four of Langley’s deputies and 23 of his assistants left by the end of 2022. Spencer promoted one of the remaining Langley holdovers, Robin Pederson, from assistant to deputy; rehired former Assistant City Attorney Joanna Frączek, who had left during Langley’s tenure; and hired a total of seven new deputies and 30 new assistants, not counting two temporary assistants.
But five deputies and 12 assistants who Spencer hired also left during his term. That includes Deputy City Attorney Odalu Ohiku, who resigned after he was caught covering up his private legal work on city time. Ohiku pleaded guilty to a criminal charge for not reporting his outside income, under a deferred prosecution deal that eventually could clear his record.
Although Spencer blamed some allegations against him on racism within his staff, the numbers tell a different story. Every attorney of color who previously worked for Langley – one Black man, four Black women and two Asian American women – left under Spencer. The nine former Langley assistants who kept their jobs are all white, as are Pederson and Frączek. And the 17 attorneys who left after being hired by Spencer included four Black men, three Black women and one Hispanic woman.
As a result, just four attorneys of color – two Black men, one Black women and one Hispanic woman – were on the staff that City Attorney Evan Goyke inherited, accounting for 14% of 29 lawyers, with 10 vacancies. That was down from 19% racial minorities at the end of Langley’s term.
For his deputies, Goyke rehired Mary Schanning, a former Langley deputy, and Naomi Sanders, who quit as an assistant after accusing Spencer of sexual harassment; promoted Julie Wilson, who served as an assistant under both Langley and Spencer; and kept Pederson. He expects to fill all his remaining vacancies by October, with a mix of former Langley assistants and newly hired lawyers.
