How do judges of the Wisconsin Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Wisconsin Supreme Court / Joined 1999 / Served to 2004

Diane S. Sykes

Justice, Wisconsin Supreme Court

Diane S. Sykes was a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1999. She earned a law degree from Marquette University in 1984. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1957 · age 69
Tenure: 1999–2004 · 5 yrs
Education: Northwestern 1980 · Marquette

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1999	Wisconsin Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Northwestern University	B.S.	1980
Marquette University	J.D.	1984

Judicial Record

In our data, Sykes authored 60 published opinions for the court (2000–2004), plus 27 dissents and 18 concurrences. Most cited: State Ex Rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County (1,735 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 105 of these were attributed to Sykes by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2004	State Ex Rel. Kalal v. Circuit Court for Dane County†	2004 WI 58	1,735
2004	American Family Mutual Insurance v. American Girl, Inc.†	2004 WI 2	372
2002	State v. Harvey†	2002 WI 93	200
2004	Steven v. v. Kelley H.†	2004 WI 47	195
2004	Tietsworth v. Harley-Davidson, Inc.†	2004 WI 32	183
2004	Village of Trempealeau v. Mikrut†	2004 WI 79	170
2003	Bruno v. Milwaukee County†	2003 WI 28	167
2000	State v. Hughes†	2000 WI 24	127
2001	Danbeck v. American Family Mutual Insurance†	2001 WI 91	126
2002	State v. Jennings†	2002 WI 44	109
2001	State v. Kelsey C.R.· Concurrence†	2001 WI 54	95
2002	Lodl v. Progressive Northern Insurance†	2002 WI 71	90
2001	State v. Johnson†	2001 WI 52	81
2000	State v. Richter†	2000 WI 58	81
2001	Koffman v. Leichtfuss· Dissent†	2001 WI 111	80

Showing the 15 most-cited of 105 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Wisconsin Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Diane S. Sykes on?: Diane S. Sykes was a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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5 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).