I'm Chris Penza. I'm a criminal prosecutor, I write about things I notice doing this work, and occasionally I build small legal tools on the side.
I spent years in private practice before this, most of it in complex estate planning. It was good work, and I learned a lot doing it — including some things about how the legal industry prices and delivers its services that I never quite stopped thinking about. That work also had me traveling a lot, and it kept me from really being part of my own community. I'd already been thinking about doing something that connected me more directly to the place I lived, and around that time I noticed the DA's office was hiring. It turned out to be a perfect match. I joined the Trempealeau County DA's Office as an Assistant District Attorney under DA John H. Sacia.
My family and I moved to Black River Falls in 2020, and it's become home in the way a place only does once you've actually put roots down in it. I coach youth sports, and I sit on local boards — not because it looks good on paper, but because that's what being part of a small community actually looks like day to day: showing up for the things that need someone to show up.
The thread that connects most of what I write and build is pretty simple: incentives shape behavior more than good intentions do, and most people — including good, honest professionals — don't fully see it happening to them. I've watched it play out inside the legal industry more times than I can count: a motion filed because it's billable, not because it will work; a document padded with pointless customization because the client "likes it," when the real reason is that it takes longer and costs more. Nobody involved thinks of it as a scam. That's what makes it worth paying attention to.
That's also why I built CP Calc and GavelBook — not as a side hustle, but as one small piece of the problem I might be able to help with: clients can't evaluate advice they can't price. If you don't know what something costs, or why, "we should try everything" and "this will cost you $300 for nothing" sound identical. Pricing transparency isn't the whole fix, but it's a part I can actually do something about.
The rest of what I write comes from the same instinct pointed at other things — courtroom practices, culture, incentives outside of law entirely. I don't always have a tidy conclusion. I just think it's worth writing down when I notice a pattern, and worth asking, honestly, whether I'm susceptible to the same blind spots I'm describing in someone else.
A fee calculator for attorneys — price legal work based on complexity, skill, and value, not just time.
A legal reference tool built for prosecutors and defense attorneys working through the Wisconsin statutes.
This is just a place to keep the tools I build, the things I write, and an honest, un-varnished sense of who I am — not a résumé, not a pitch. If you're a lawyer, a client, or just a neighbor, I'm glad you're here.
Community matters to me because I don't think any of us get very far alone — we're social beings, built to need each other. Somewhere along the way I came to believe that relationships matter more than assets ever will, and most of what I do outside of work, in this community, comes back to that.