Godfrey & Kahn: Attorney Linda M. Clifford Selected as a Wisconsin Leader in the Law

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Cindy Lorentzen, Marketing Specialist
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Madison, Wisconsin (March 15, 2005). Godfrey & Kahn, S.C. is pleased to announce that Linda M. Clifford, a shareholder in the Firm’s Madison office (LaFollette Godfrey & Kahn) and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, has been selected for the Wisconsin Law Journal’s “Leaders in the Law” award and will be honored at a dinner on April 6, 2005. This award honors individual practitioners and teams based on a variety of achievement criteria surrounding their contributions to the practice of law, the legal community and the community at large.

Clifford’s practice includes civil and administrative litigation and appeals involving energy, telecommunications, media, and municipal and state government issues. She also has an extensive appellate practice and handles immigration matters for the firm’s clients.

On a pro bono basis, she has attained asylum for refugees from Iraq, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan persecuted on account of their ethnic, political and religious affiliation. In 2004, Linda represented a Kazakhstan woman and her two daughters who fled their homeland after persecution by their fundamentalist Muslim clan simply because they had converted from Islam to Christianity. They feared that their return to Kazakhstan would result in continued persecution and even death. Against the defense of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and with pretial help from Godfrey & Kahn Attorney Choua L. Vang of the firm’s Appleton office, Clifford marshaled and presented expert and other testimony during a two-day trial – all pro bono – and won. Her clients were granted political asylum.

Before joining the firm, Clifford served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Wisconsin Department of Justice where she enforced Wisconsin environmental protection laws and litigated constitutional and state and local government issues.

Among her many bar and community service activities, Clifford served the Dane County Bar Association as its president in 1993-94 and was a member of the Office of Lawyer Regulation District #9 Investigative Committee for nine years. During 2004, she was appointed by the Governor of Wisconsin to serve on the State Historical Society Board of Curators. She also became Chair of the State Bar’s Energy and Telecommunications Section Board.

Clifford received her law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School where she was a member of the board of editors of the Wisconsin Law Review. She is a trustee of Beloit College, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude.

Founded in 1957, Godfrey & Kahn maintains offices in Milwaukee, Madison (LaFollette Godfrey & Kahn), Appleton, Green Bay, and Waukesha. With more than 180 attorneys, Godfrey & Kahn provides legal and business advice to clients ranging from small businesses and governmental entities to large privately and publicly held national and international companies. For more information, visit our web site at www.gklaw.com.