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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Wisconsin Supreme Court / Joined 1946 / Served to 1947

James Ward Rector

Justice, Wisconsin Supreme Court

James Ward Rector was a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1946. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1903–1979
Tenure: 1946–1947 · 1 yr

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1946	Wisconsin Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Rector authored 42 published opinions for the court (1946–1947), plus 2 dissents and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Cudahy v. First Wisconsin Trust Co. (20 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1947	Cudahy v. First Wisconsin Trust Co.	28 N.W.2d 340	20
1947	Estate of Nols	28 N.W.2d 360	13
1947	Smith v. City of Whitewater	29 N.W.2d 33	11
1947	State Ex Rel. Wells v. Hanley	27 N.W.2d 373	11
1947	Anderson v. Industrial Commission	27 N.W.2d 499	11
1947	Smith v. City of Whitewater	29 N.W.2d 87	9
1947	Callahan v. La Crosse Trust Co.	29 N.W.2d 352	9
1947	State Ex Rel. Dame v. Lefevre	28 N.W.2d 349	9
1947	City of Racine v. Woiteshek	29 N.W.2d 752	8
1946	Kilmer v. Kilmer· Dissent	23 N.W.2d 510	8
1947	Fontaine v. Brown County Motors Co.	29 N.W.2d 744	7
1947	Wisconsin Electric Power Co. v. Department of Taxation	29 N.W.2d 711	7
1946	Kline v. Johannesen	24 N.W.2d 595	7
1946	Prosser v. Nickolay	23 N.W.2d 403	6
1947	Olson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance	30 N.W.2d 196	5

Showing the 15 most-cited of 45 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 James Ward Rector on?: James Ward Rector 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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1 year 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).