Donald W. Steinmetz

Donald Walter Steinmetz (September 19, 1924 – August 31, 2013) was an American lawyer and judge. He served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for 19 years, and before that was a trial judge in Milwaukee County for 14 years.

Steinmetz was married to Marjorie Steinmetz, with whom he had five children: Mary Christine Bird, Kathleen Marie Boer, Christian George Steinmetz, Susan Kathryn Leverson, and James Martin Steinmetz. At the time of his death, he had thirteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.^[1]

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Steinmetz served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Steinmetz then graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1949 and received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1951.^[2] Steinmetz was a claims attorney before his service in government. Between 1958 and 1966, he worked as an assistant Milwaukee city attorney, an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County, and an assistant Wisconsin Attorney General.

In 1964, he was the preferred candidate of Democratic leaders, including Governor John W. Reynolds, Jr., to replace deceased Milwaukee County District Attorney William McCauley, but the post went to Hugh O'Connell.

He was a Wisconsin county judge and later a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge for Milwaukee County after the county courts were combined into the circuit courts. He was also a teacher at the Wisconsin Judicial College. He was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1980 and re-elected in 1990.^[3][4]

He died on August 31, 2013, in Milwaukee.^[5]