Jeffrey A. Mandell

One of Wisconsin’s leading election law litigators, Attorney Jeffrey A. Mandell of Stafford Rosenbaum represented Governor Tony Evers in the bevy of challenges to the validity of Wisconsin’s November 2020 election and represents the City of Green Bay in relation to the Wisconsin Assembly's broad investigation of Wisconsin elections. He previously prosecuted the complaints that kept Kanye West and Howie Hawkins off of Wisconsin’s presidential ballot for the 2020 election. He has represented Disability Rights Wisconsin in defending the statutory provision that guarantees “indefinitely confined” voters access to absentee ballots and helped the Service Employees International Union block efforts to purge hundreds of thousands of registered voters from Wisconsin’s rolls. Earlier, Jeff led the state constitutional challenge against the Wisconsin Legislature’s December 2018 lame-duck extraordinary session.

Jeff leads two practice teams at Stafford Rosenbaum—appeals and election and political law. He argues frequently before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and state courts at every level. He regularly handles cases and appeals in federal courts, within Wisconsin and beyond. He has participated in cases at the U.S. Supreme Court about a broad range of issues, from election law to takings, administrative law to civil procedure, class actions to civil liberties.

Jeff has been a commercial litigator for more than fifteen years, first at Bartlit Beck (Chicago), then at Jones Day (D.C.), and now at Stafford Rosenbaum (Madison). He excels in complex litigation, regardless of subject matter. He is the current co-author of the definitive treatise on the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law, and he regularly counsels and represents dealers and grantors on issues under that law. He has represented a tobacco company for more than a decade in the remedial stages of a civil RICO case; he helped a financial-guarantee insurer navigate exit from Wisconsin’s largest-ever insurance rehabilitation proceeding; he has successfully challenged State procurement decisions on behalf of disappointed proposers; he works with creditors in bankruptcy proceedings, municipalities in litigation involving statutory requirements, and a variety of parties in contract, tort, property, administrative, and patent disputes.

Jeff graduated from the University of Chicago Law School with high honors. Immediately after law school, Jeff served as a law clerk to the Honorable A. Raymond Randolph on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Jeff founded, and serves as both President and Lead Counsel of, Law Forward, a nonprofit, nonpartisan law firm that protects and advances democracy in Wisconsin.