Attorneys of the Year: Peter M. Reyes Jr.

Posted: 1:05 pm Mon, February 25, 2013
By Nancy Crotti

Cargill Inc.

Peter M. Reyes Jr. is building for the future. A senior intellectual property lawyer with Cargill Inc. and president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, Reyes has been to the White House to discuss judicial nominations and immigration reform.

He is focusing on leadership training for the HNBA’s 100,000 members, as well as a leadership development collaboration with the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the National Native American Bar Association and the National Asian Pacific Bar Association.

He is also developing regional corporate networking events across the country, giving in-house counsel the opportunity to meet with diverse outside counsel.

Moreover, he is bringing this work home to Minnesota. The leadership development collaboration will debut in June 2013 in the Twin Cities, and one of the regional networking events will take place here, too.

Reyes has moved up through the ranks at the HNBA since 2003. He brought the association’s 2007 Midyear Convention and Moot Court Competition to Minnesota as well as the 2010 HNBA Annual Convention.

He attended his first HNBA event in San Jose, Calif., where people were surprised to learn that Hispanics lived in Minnesota. Reyes’ grandparents were migrant workers who worked their way north from Mexico and settled here shortly after World War I. He was the first family member to attend college, majoring in chemistry.

Reyes began his career as an environmental scientist and graduated from William Mitchell College of Law, becoming a registered patent attorney. He worked at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Cerisi before joining Cargill 12 years ago.

Ramsey County Judge Salvador Rosas, for whom Reyes clerked, urged him to get involved in HNBA, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. Reyes said he is laying the groundwork for the next 40 years.

“I consider myself to be very privileged, very blessed to be in this position,” he said. “I feel like I’m living the American dream.”