Office of Legal Affairs

Who we represent

The Office of Legal Affairs advises the university — its leadership, departments and employees acting in their university roles. It does not represent individual students or employees in personal matters. Students with a landlord dispute, a traffic ticket or a contract question should use student legal services; employees with a personal workplace concern should start with human resources.

Porter does not have its own general counsel. Legal services for every UW System campus are provided by the system’s Office of General Counsel, which assigns attorneys to campuses. Porter’s is Kristin Mjelde, J.D., senior university counsel, who works from Millwright Hall three days a week and attends the chancellor’s cabinet. Litigation against the university is handled with the state attorney general’s office.

Staff

Contracts

Only people with delegated signature authority can bind the university — principally the chancellor, the vice chancellor for finance and operations and the director of purchasing. A dean, chair or faculty member who signs a vendor agreement, a facility rental or a click-through license on Porter’s behalf has signed it personally.

• Send every non-standard agreement to contracts@uwporterfalls.edu with the other party’s draft and a one-line summary of what it is for.
• Standard templates (guest speaker, clinical affiliation, internship site, equipment loan) are in MyPorter and usually clear in three business days.
• Negotiated agreements take ten to fifteen business days. Indemnification and out-of-state governing-law clauses are the usual sticking points; state law limits what a public university can agree to.
• Purchases go through procurement first; sponsored-research agreements go through Research & Sponsored Programs.

Public records

Porter is subject to Wesconsin’s open-records law. Anyone can request records without giving a reason; the full process, fees and timelines are on public records. The records officer received 214 requests last year and filled the median request in nine business days. Employees who receive a request directly should forward it the same day, preserve anything responsive, and not decide on their own what to release. How long each kind of record must be kept is set by the records retention schedules.

Subpoenas and legal holds

A subpoena, summons or court order addressed to the university or to an employee in their university role must be sent to this office immediately, by email and in person if it was hand-delivered. Do not respond to it, release records or agree to a deposition on your own. Subpoenas for student education records are coordinated with the registrar under FERPA, which usually requires notifying the student before release. When litigation is reasonably expected, the office issues a written legal hold telling named people what not to delete; a hold overrides normal retention schedules until it is lifted in writing.

Policies and outside activities

University-wide policies are drafted by the office that owns them, but every new or substantially revised policy gets a legal review before it goes to the cabinet; allow four weeks. The office keeps the policy library current and dates every change.

Employees with an outside consulting job, a business that might sell to Porter, or a financial interest in a research sponsor file an annual outside-activities disclosure each October. Most disclosures need nothing more; the ones that do get a short management plan written with the employee, not imposed on them. Concerns about fraud, waste or misconduct by a university employee can be reported under the whistleblower policy, which protects the person who reports.