Waukesha County is this firm’s home county. The office is in New Berlin, which is a Waukesha County city, and the courthouse is a fifteen-minute drive from the front door.
One courthouse, twelve branches
Unlike Milwaukee, Waukesha County concentrates almost everything in a single building: the Waukesha County Courthouse at 515 W. Moreland Boulevard, part of the Third Judicial District. Criminal, family, civil and probate matters are all heard there, across a dozen circuit court branches. Juvenile matters are heard separately, at the Juvenile Center, 521 Riverview Avenue. The practical consequence is that a Waukesha County case is easier to navigate physically and harder to navigate procedurally — a smaller bench means a case is likelier to stay with the same judge from arraignment to disposition, and the record you build early is the record that judge will still be reading at sentencing.
A county with a reputation, and what is true about it
Waukesha County has a longstanding reputation among defense lawyers for firmer charging and firmer sentencing than its neighbor to the east. Reputations of that kind are impressions rather than statistics, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What can be said without hedging is that the county is not a place to arrive unrepresented on the theory that a first offense resolves itself. It generally does not.
The municipal courts
First-offense OWI and ordinance matters begin in the municipal court of the municipality that issued the citation. Waukesha County has a large number of them, and they are not arranged the way most people assume. New Berlin, Waukesha, Brookfield, Menomonee Falls, Muskego, Pewaukee, Delafield, Elm Grove, Mukwonago and Butler each run their own. Hartland, Sussex and Oconomowoc do not — those three are served jointly by the Lake Country Municipal Court, so a citation issued in Sussex is not returnable in Sussex. A citation returnable in a village court that meets once a month can leave a driver’s license question unresolved for far longer than the client expects, and the occupational-license question usually needs to be handled on its own timetable rather than waiting for the court date.
What Carson Law Office handles in Waukesha County
Criminal defense at every level, from municipal citations to felonies at the Moreland Boulevard courthouse; OWI, first offense through repeat; divorce, custody and placement; Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy; and personal injury. Being local is not an argument by itself — but thirty-four years of appearances in one courthouse is a different thing from a firm that visits it.
Practice areas: Criminal defense · Family law · Bankruptcy · Personal injury
Talk to a lawyer before you talk to anyone else
Carson Law Office is at 15350 W. National Ave., Suite 101, New Berlin, and Attorney Christopher S. Carson has practiced in southeastern Wisconsin for thirty-four years. The first consultation costs nothing, and the useful time to have it is before a plea date, before a financial disclosure is filed, and before you give a statement.
Call (262) 860-8932 or send a message through the contact page. If your matter is in Waukesha County, say so when you call — where a case is venued changes what happens next.
This page is general information about Wisconsin law and the courts of Waukesha County. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.