The Eastern District of Wisconsin is a five-judge federal court with an outsized criminal docket: 286 people sentenced in fiscal year 2024, with firearms cases running at 22.4 percent — well beyond the 13.2 percent national share — and drug trafficking at more than a third of the total. Its territory runs from Kenosha up the Lake Michigan shore through Milwaukee to Green Bay and the Menominee Reservation, which means everything from corporate fraud to Indian-country prosecutions lands in the same two courthouses. Facing a federal matter here means facing prosecutors who know that terrain; your counsel should too.
Here we map the court — its bench, its Milwaukee and Green Bay courthouses, the prosecuting office and its current leadership, what the sentencing data show, and how appeals and post-conviction motions work from this district. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. defends federal cases nationwide, appearing in the Eastern District of Wisconsin pro hac vice; the firm’s principal attorney, Elizabeth Franklin-Best, has appeared in more than 330 federal matters, including in excess of 100 appeals across all twelve federal circuits and at the U.S. Supreme Court. She carries two current peer recognitions — Best Lawyers in America 2026 in Appellate Practice, and a 2026 Chambers USA ranking in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. The page sits within our federal courts directory.
When a federal case in Milwaukee or Green Bay is on the line, guesswork is expensive. Our paid, one-hour initial consultation exists to replace it with a working assessment of the charges, the timeline, and your realistic choices.
Table of Contents
Quick Answer: Eastern District of Wisconsin
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What does the Eastern District of Wisconsin cover? | The 28 easternmost Wisconsin counties under 28 U.S.C. § 130(a) — Kenosha to Door County, taking in Milwaukee, Racine, Waukesha, the Fox Valley, and Green Bay. |
| Where does court sit? | Milwaukee (headquarters) and Green Bay. The statute also names Oshkosh as a place of holding court, but the court staffs no office there. |
| Who sits on the bench? | Chief Judge Pamela Pepper and three other district judges in Milwaukee, Judge Byron B. Conway in Green Bay, plus a senior judge and the magistrate corps (as of mid-2026). |
| Who prosecutes federal cases? | The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, led as of mid-2026 by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad D. Schimel — the district currently has no Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. |
| What stands out in the caseload? | Firearms cases at 22.4 percent of FY2024 sentencings (national: 13.2), drug trafficking at 36.7 percent, and fraud above the national share at 11.9 percent. |
| Does the district hear tribal-land cases? | Yes — prosecutions arising on the Menominee Reservation and other Indian country within the district are charged federally here. |
| Which circuit hears appeals? | The Seventh Circuit, the same court that reviews Illinois and Indiana federal cases. |
| Can we appear in this court? | We can and do — pro hac vice admission is how outside federal counsel appears here, and our paid, one-hour initial consultation is the first step in any engagement. |
Key Takeaways
- 28 U.S.C. § 130(a) gives the Eastern District of Wisconsin 28 counties; the working courthouses are Milwaukee and Green Bay, with statutory Oshkosh unstaffed.
- Five district judgeships under § 133: as of mid-2026, Chief Judge Pamela Pepper, Judges J.P. Stadtmueller, Lynn Adelman, and Brett H. Ludwig in Milwaukee, and Judge Byron B. Conway in Green Bay, with Senior Judge William C. Griesbach also sitting in Green Bay.
- The district has no Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney as of mid-2026; First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad D. Schimel leads the office.
- Firearms prosecutions ran at 22.4 percent of the district’s 286 FY2024 sentencings — well above the 13.2 percent national figure — with drug trafficking at 36.7 percent and fraud at 11.9 percent.
- Federal jurisdiction over the Menominee Reservation and other Indian country adds assault, exploitation, and other Major Crimes Act cases to the Green Bay calendar.
- Eleven cases were tried in FY2024; 96.2 percent of sentencings followed guilty pleas.
- Appeals run to the Seventh Circuit on Rule 4(b)’s unforgiving schedule: fourteen days from entry of judgment to notice the appeal.
- A § 2255 motion attacking an Eastern District of Wisconsin conviction is filed back in this district, whatever prison holds the petitioner.
- We take Eastern District of Wisconsin trial, appellate, and post-conviction matters through pro hac vice admission.
The Eastern District of Wisconsin at a Glance
Wisconsin splits into two federal districts along a rough north-south line, and the Eastern District got the population: 28 counties under 28 U.S.C. § 130(a) containing Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Waukesha, the Fox Valley cities, and Green Bay. Most of the state’s people — and most of its federal criminal cases — fall on this side of the line.
The statute names three places of holding court — Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Oshkosh — but the court’s operating reality is two: the headquarters courthouse in Milwaukee and the Green Bay courthouse serving the northern counties. Oshkosh remains on the books with no staffed office, a reminder that the statutory map and the practical map of a district are not always the same thing.
Charging decisions district-wide belong to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin; appellate review belongs to the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Layered over the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are the district’s local rules and each judge’s posted practice instructions — the court’s website publishes per-judge guidance, and judges here expect counsel to have read theirs before the first hearing.
Five Judges, Two Courthouses: Milwaukee and Green Bay
Congress authorizes five district judgeships for the Eastern District of Wisconsin under 28 U.S.C. § 133, and the court’s own roster (as of mid-2026) places four of the five in Milwaukee: Chief Judge Pamela Pepper and Judges J.P. Stadtmueller, Lynn Adelman, and Brett H. Ludwig. The fifth, Judge Byron B. Conway, sits in Green Bay alongside Senior District Judge William C. Griesbach, who continues to hear cases there.
Three full-time magistrate judges — Nancy Joseph, William E. Duffin, and Stephen C. Dries — handle the Milwaukee intake calendar of initial appearances, detention hearings, and pretrial supervision disputes, with part-time Magistrate Judge Tiffany E. Woelfel covering Green Bay and two recalled magistrate judges supplementing the bench. For a defendant, this structure has a practical meaning: the first weeks of a case, when release conditions and early strategy are set, almost always play out in a magistrate courtroom.
The court publishes each judge’s practice instructions and even courtroom assignments on its public roster. We read all of it before we file anything — not to predict rulings, which no one can honestly promise, but because motions framed for the judge who will actually decide them are simply better motions.
Milwaukee’s Federal Docket: Firearms, Drugs, and Fraud
An unusual leadership fact comes first: as of mid-2026, the Eastern District of Wisconsin has no Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. The office is led by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad D. Schimel, working from the Milwaukee headquarters with a branch office in Green Bay. The vacancy changes none of the office’s authority — indictments issue and cases proceed exactly as they would otherwise — but it is the kind of detail that careful defense counsel tracks, because leadership transitions can shift charging emphasis.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s FY2024 packet shows where the office spends its energy. Of 286 people sentenced, drug-trafficking cases led at 105 (36.7 percent), followed by firearms at 64 — 22.4 percent of the docket, against a 13.2 percent national share, reflecting sustained Project Safe Neighborhoods enforcement in Milwaukee. Fraud, theft, and embezzlement came in at 34 cases (11.9 percent, above the 8.6 percent national figure), with robbery at 20, child sexual abuse material at 18, and money laundering at 12. Guilty pleas resolved 96.2 percent of cases; 11 went to trial.
That fraud number deserves emphasis on a site devoted to white-collar defense: Milwaukee’s corporate, health-care, and financial-services economy keeps this district’s fraud docket proportionally busier than the nation’s, and those investigations — wire fraud, bank fraud, program fraud — are precisely the cases where early, quiet intervention by counsel does the most good.
Green Bay and the Indian Country Docket
One feature distinguishes this district from its Seventh Circuit neighbors: Indian country. The Menominee Reservation lies within the district’s 28 counties, and under the Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1153, serious offenses committed there by tribal members are prosecuted federally rather than in state court. The U.S. Attorney’s recent press docket reflects a steady run of these cases — assaults, child-welfare offenses, and exploitation charges arising on the reservation — most of them heard on the Green Bay calendar.
Indian-country prosecutions carry their own jurisdictional architecture — who committed the offense, against whom, and where each element occurred can determine whether a case belongs in federal court at all. For defendants, that makes jurisdiction itself a live defense issue in a way it rarely is elsewhere, and it is one of the first things we examine in any case charged out of the district’s tribal lands.
Federal Criminal Cases in the District
Whether the charge sounds in fraud, white-collar crime, drugs, or firearms, every Eastern District of Wisconsin prosecution travels the same procedural road — and the junctions where cases are won or lost come earlier on that road than most people expect.
Most cases begin with an investigation by a federal agency, sometimes signaled by a target letter or a grand jury subpoena. Formal charges follow, typically by indictment. After an initial appearance and arraignment, the case proceeds through pretrial litigation and discovery, and is then resolved either by a negotiated plea agreement or by trial. A conviction is followed by sentencing under the federal framework. The firm’s federal criminal process hub walks through each stage in detail.
Our defense work tracks that road end to end: pre-charge advocacy while an investigation is still quiet, detention and suppression litigation once charges land, plea negotiation conducted with a credible trial alternative behind it, and sentencing advocacy built on the record we have been assembling since day one. Eleven federal juries sat in this district in FY2024 — trial here is uncommon, but it is never hypothetical.
Applied Insight: A fraud share above the national average means Milwaukee’s federal grand juries see more financial cases than most — and financial cases announce themselves early, through subpoenas, agent interviews, and civil investigative demands long before an indictment. The window between first contact and charging decision is where a defense lawyer can sometimes narrow charges or head them off entirely. Once that window closes in this district, it closes for good.
Appeals and Post-Conviction Matters
Convictions and sentences from Milwaukee and Green Bay are reviewed by the Seventh Circuit, two hours south in Chicago. The first deadline is the one that catches people: under Appellate Rule 4(b), a criminal defendant’s notice of appeal is due fourteen days after judgment enters, which means appellate counsel should be in the conversation before sentencing, not after.
Collateral remedies stay anchored to this district as the court of conviction. A motion under § 2255 — the federal prisoner’s main vehicle for ineffective-assistance and constitutional claims, covered in our post-conviction relief guide — is filed back in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. So are motions for compassionate release, where Seventh Circuit doctrine has long been demanding: in United States v. Black, 131 F.4th 542 (7th Cir. 2025), the circuit reaffirmed that nonretroactive changes in sentencing law are not extraordinary and compelling reasons under § 3582(c)(1)(A) — a position the Supreme Court adopted for the whole country in Rutherford in May 2026. The local numbers reflect that rigor: the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s full-year data show the Seventh Circuit granting only 8.1 percent of compassionate-release motions in fiscal year 2025 (14 of 173), and the Eastern District of Wisconsin granting none of the 35 it decided. Motions here must therefore be built on genuinely individual circumstances, which is exactly how we build them.
How the Firm Practices in This Court
Federal courts admit qualified outside counsel case by case, and that mechanism — pro hac vice admission under the district’s local rules — is how we appear in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. It is paperwork, not an obstacle: the motion is filed at the start of the case, and from that point we stand before the court exactly as any member of its bar would.
The reason the system works this way is that nothing substantive about a federal case is local. The wire-fraud statute charged in Milwaukee is the statute charged in Manhattan; the Guidelines ranges, the Rule 11 plea procedure, and the Seventh Circuit precedent are identical in Green Bay and Chicago. What is local — judges’ practice instructions, magistrate calendars, the rhythms of a particular U.S. Attorney’s office — is exactly what this page documents and what we prepare for deliberately in every engagement.
Appellate and post-conviction litigation is where our practice is deepest — Elizabeth Franklin-Best argues in federal circuits across the country, is admitted to all twelve plus the U.S. Supreme Court, and wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction for people fighting after judgment. Wisconsin clients west of the district line should see our Western District of Wisconsin guide; those with Chicago-area matters, our Northern District of Illinois page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What area does the Eastern District of Wisconsin cover?
Twenty-eight eastern Wisconsin counties listed in 28 U.S.C. § 130(a), running from Kenosha and Racine through Milwaukee and the Fox Valley up to Green Bay and Door County. Court is held in Milwaukee and Green Bay; Oshkosh appears in the statute but has no staffed courthouse.
Who prosecutes federal crimes in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, headquartered in Milwaukee with a Green Bay branch. As of mid-2026 the district has no Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney; the office is led by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad D. Schimel. Its recent docket emphasizes firearms, drug trafficking, child exploitation, fraud, and Indian-country prosecutions.
Who are the federal judges in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
As of mid-2026: Chief Judge Pamela Pepper and Judges J.P. Stadtmueller, Lynn Adelman, and Brett H. Ludwig in Milwaukee, and Judge Byron B. Conway in Green Bay, where Senior Judge William C. Griesbach also hears cases. Magistrate Judges Nancy Joseph, William E. Duffin, and Stephen C. Dries sit in Milwaukee, with a part-time magistrate judge in Green Bay.
Why are reservation crimes prosecuted in federal court in Wisconsin?
Under the Major Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1153, serious offenses committed by tribal members in Indian country are federal crimes. Because the Menominee Reservation and other tribal lands lie within the Eastern District of Wisconsin, those cases are charged in this district — most often on the Green Bay calendar — rather than in Wisconsin state courts.
What federal crimes are most common in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
In fiscal year 2024, drug-trafficking cases made up 36.7 percent of the 286 people sentenced, firearms cases 22.4 percent — far above the 13.2 percent national share — and fraud, theft, and embezzlement 11.9 percent. Robbery, child-exploitation, and money-laundering cases filled out most of the remainder.
Which appeals court covers the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. The criminal notice of appeal is generally due fourteen days from the entry of judgment, so the appellate decision follows immediately on sentencing.
How does a federal criminal case proceed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
Cases open with an investigation — grand jury subpoenas, agent interviews, sometimes a target letter — then indictment, an initial appearance and arraignment before a Milwaukee or Green Bay magistrate judge, pretrial motions and discovery, and resolution by plea or trial, followed by Guidelines sentencing. In FY2024, 96.2 percent of sentenced cases here came from guilty pleas.
Can an out-of-state lawyer represent me in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
Yes — the district admits outside counsel pro hac vice under its local rules, a routine motion filed in the case itself. Since federal criminal law and procedure are uniform nationwide, the experience that matters is federal courtroom experience, not the state on the lawyer’s bar card.
Does the firm handle federal cases in the Eastern District of Wisconsin?
We defend federal investigations and charges in Milwaukee and Green Bay, brief and argue Seventh Circuit appeals, and litigate § 2255 and compassionate-release motions from this district. Engagements open with a paid, one-hour initial consultation — a working session on your case, not a sales call.
Talk With a Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer
Maybe agents have already knocked in Waukesha; maybe a Green Bay indictment is set for arraignment; maybe a Milwaukee sentence deserves a second, appellate look. Wherever you are in the process, our paid, one-hour initial consultation puts experienced federal eyes on the problem and ends with concrete next steps.