13 minute read
Super lawyer: Joseph E. Boucher CPA, MBA, JD
Photo provided by the WICPA Photography by Andy Manis
SUPER LAWYER
Joseph W. Boucher, CPA, MBA, JD
If you’ve ever had a conversation with Joe Boucher, you probably noticed that he talks so fast you can hardly get a word in edgewise, and he skips from one topic to the next with lightning speed. He’s like the Energizer Bunny. His brain seems to be working overtime, and so is he. That’s evident when you look at his career. Boucher is a founding shareholder of the Madison law firm Neider & Boucher S.C. and currently serves as the firm’s chairman of the board. He is an active WICPA member who (among other things) co-drafted the original Wisconsin Uniform Limited Liability Company (LLC) law (Wisconsin § Chapter 183), amendments to Chapter 183, the Wisconsin Uniform Partnership (LLP) law (Wisconsin § Chapter 178) and the 2021 Wisconsin Act 258, which modifies the most recent versions of both laws. Boucher has written extensively for On Balance and The Wisconsin Lawyer about LLC developments since the initial law was passed in 1994. Since the early 2000s, Boucher has been named a Wisconsin Super Lawyer, and Madison Magazine has consistently named him one of Madison’s leading business attorneys. In 2020, he received the WICPA’s Career Achievement Award. He graduated from St. Norbert College with a bachelor’s degree in 1973 and went on to earn an MBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1978 after receiving a Juris Doctorate from the UW in December 1977. In addition to his busy career, Boucher also teaches college classes. He has been teaching business law at UW–Madison for more than 30 years: since 1988 to accounting majors and since 2000 to graduate students. One wonders where he gets the energy to juggle it all. The answer is motivation — perhaps seasoned by just a pinch of attention deficit hyperactivity. Thus, the Energizer Bunny analogy.
The early years
The CPA-lawyer-educator grew up in Marinette, where the family lived in a four-unit apartment building, built in the 1880s and overlooking the Menominee River. His father established a sole proprietorship there after World War II: Bouche’s Bungalow Bakery. The name was misspelled intentionally because Mr. Boucher thought people would mispronounce the family name — which is accurately pronounced “boo-shay” and still is often mispronounced. The bakery gave Boucher his first job. “It was a great place to work as a kid and to learn how to work and how a business operates,” he said. Boucher’s father died suddenly in 1970 — right before Boucher’s graduation from Marinette Catholic Central High School (now St. Thomas Aquinas Academy). His mother kept the bakery going until the 1980s, when his younger brother, Patrick, took over and operated the business until about 2000. “Mom did a great job keeping it going, and Patrick did the best he could,” Boucher said. “It was a tough business, both physically and financially.” Before his father died, Boucher had been accepted at “half a dozen” colleges; he had made up his mind to attend UW–La Crosse, but his father’s death created a dilemma. “We had this family business in Marinette,” he said. “So I felt obligated to stay close to home. St. Norbert College in De Pere is only an hour away, and that’s how I ended up there,” he explained.
Joe Boucher with his long-time business partner, Charles E. Neider.
Finding his path
After a couple of years at St. Norbert, Boucher started having second thoughts about his major, which at that time was math. He wanted to change it, but he didn’t want it to delay his graduation plans. He was determined to finish before he turned 22. His education had been partially financed by Social Security benefits he received after his father’s death, and
Boucher (back row, third from left) at the signing of Senate Bill 466, which enacts new LLC and LLP laws.
that money would run out when he turned 22 — and family finances were understandably very tight. So he consulted his advisor at St. Norbert, and they came up with a plan. As a result, Boucher graduated with a liberal arts degree in December 1973 — and then headed for grad school. “My mom wanted me to go to law school. Her best friend was a court reporter, and her dad was a judge and her brother a lawyer. They’re both Irish Catholic women, and Mom thought being a lawyer was a big deal,” he said. “But when your mom pushes you toward something, you push back, right?” He headed for business school (and added law school later). Boucher chose the MBA program at UW–Madison and financed his first year of graduate school with money he had earned working for the Chicago & North Western Railroad. “The long story is that my dad employed the railroad boss’s kids because the railroad had a policy prohibiting nepotism. In return, the railroad hired me during one summer in high school and again between St. Norbert and grad school. Back then, you could earn enough money to pay for school because UW tuition was so low,” Boucher remembered.
It all began with sports
His dream was to ultimately work in sports management, but the only graduate program in that field was in Ohio. “I couldn’t afford out-of-state tuition,” said Boucher. “So I thought maybe if I got an MBA, I could weave in sports management somehow.” That decision led him to a decades-long relationship with Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic college-preparatory school in Madison, where he and his wife eventually sent their three children and where they both spent hours of time volunteering. “I’ve always been involved in sports,” Boucher said. “So when I started grad school at UW, I wrote to all the high schools in the area and told them I really wanted to coach, and the only one that responded was Edgewood. So I developed a relationship there early on, in 1974, and I fell in love with the place. I coached there for a year and then I also served on their board of trustees, chairing it for two years.” Boucher also coached at Blessed Sacrament Grade School for many years. And while he was coaching, his wife, Susan DeGroot — who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance in addition to her law degree — served as Edgewood’s piano accompanist for choirs, plays and music classes. Edgewood showed its appreciation to the Bouchers with several honors over the years: Boucher received the Annual Alumni Appreciation Award in 2009 and induction to the school’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2016, and De Groot was honored with induction into the school’s Fine Arts Hall of Fame. Boucher also was named a Hall of Fame member “as a friend of high school basketball” by the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association in 2020.
Family ties and motivations
Boucher and his wife have three children, all high achievers like their parents. In fact, one is a CPA-lawyer like his father. Their youngest child, J. William “Willie” Boucher, CPA, JD, is an attorney for the law firm of Quarles & Brady LLP in Madison and a member of the WICPA. Boucher’s oldest child, Elizabeth Boucher Dawson, JD, is an environmental lawyer in
Washington, D.C.; and Bridget Boucher Harland, the middle child, has a Master of Science degree in social work and currently works part time at Froedtert Hospital. All three of Boucher’s children are bilingual, speaking Spanish in addition to English. Boucher has been teaching business law and other courses to aspiring CPAs and attorneys at UW–Madison for more than 30 years now. It’s obvious he loves to teach. When asked what motivates him to keep doing it year after year, he replied: “It’s real simple: Young people are so cool. I’m so motivated by 21-year-olds. I’m motivated by my own kids. I’m kind of a glass-half-full kind of guy, a real optimist, and what makes me optimistic is young people,” he said. But his primary motivation is his wife, Susan. The two have been together since meeting in law school in 1975. They married in 1977. “The only reason I can do all this stuff is because of Susan. She and I are a team, and we share the same passions. She is equally as motivated and driven as I am,” he said, adding that Susan played the piano for Blessed Sacrament Christmas programs and at Edgewood High School as a volunteer for nearly 20 years — in addition to her career as an estate planning attorney at Neider & Boucher. But Boucher had another motivating force all his life until just a few years ago: his brother Paul, who was disabled and sadly passed away suddenly, early in the pandemic. “He was my north star. He motivated me,” said Boucher. “Everybody in Marinette knew Paul. For 44 years, he worked at Goodwill Industries of Northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, which was just a block from our home — and right next to Goodwill was the Marinette Fire Department. The firefighters there just embraced my brother. Paul spent all his free time there. So, four or five years ago they had the 150th anniversary of the fire department, and — of all the people over all those years — the honored guest was Paul. He made a huge impact on them. You think I’m outgoing? Paul was me plus. He had a great memory, he was musical, he was just a terrific person. “I took him all over the country. I’d take him to fire departments and places like that because he loved firefighters,” said Boucher. “So Paul had disabilities, but we nurtured him, and my mom did a spectacular job with him. But what I’m saying is that I’m motivated by people like that.”
Boucher with his brother, Paul, outside Fenway Park in Boston.
Marcia Tillett-Zinzow is a Wisconsin freelance writer and editor. Contact her at mtzinzow@icloud.com.
H
In addition to the honors and awards mentioned in this article, Boucher also has received the following distinctions
H Distinguished alumnus, St. Norbert College — August 2004 H Wisconsin Small Business Advocate, Wisconsin Small
Business Administration — 1993 and 2005 H Wisconsin Lawyer’s Charles Dunn Author Award, recognizing writing excellence, for the article “E-Legacy:
Who Inherits Your Digital Assets?” — 2010 H Named a Leader in the Law by the Wisconsin Law
Journal — 2015 H Named Best Lawyer in the Madison Area for Closely Held
Companies and Family Businesses — August 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 H Inducted to the Entrepreneur’s Hall of Fame, Weinert
Center for Entrepreneurship of the University of
Wisconsin–Madison School of Business — May 2017 H State Bar of Wisconsin’s Charles L. Goldberg
Distinguished Service Award, given for lifetime service to the legal profession and to the public — September 2020
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Robert Mathers
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FIRM NEWS
Honkamp Krueger & Co. P.C. will acquire the Cedar Falls and Parkersburg, Iowa, offices of Gosling & Co. P.C., effective Nov. 1. The firm also has changed its name to Honkamp & Co. P.C. and refreshed their brand.
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