Minnesota Lawyer
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Asoftball game 34 years ago resulted in a new career for Lori Wosmek Brown.“We were standing around, and a girlfriend said, ‘Hey, Dorsey & Whitney is looking for a legal secretary.’ Next thing I knew I was interviewing, and two weeks later was my first day.”
The succeeding years have put Brown in a key role among Dorsey’s support staff. She handles logistics for dozens of client CLE programs each month — sometimes more than one in a day. That includes the invitation and mailing list, as well as working with Dorsey’s audio-visual team.
She also works with Dorsey attorneys to make sure program-related deadlines are met and is trusted to proofread program materials to make sure they’re perfect.
“I do a lot of client-facing and internal training,” Brown said. “I’m also responsible for deal reporting for our M&A/capital markets group. But mostly I do client-facing programs — probably 90 percent of the ones we offer.
“I want to make the process seamless for any of our lawyers who are speaking or presenting.”
Brown is also a big part of the firm’s signature client events, such as its annual Corporate Counsel Symposium and Labor & Employment Symposium. And these are not small-time things; they typically draw up to 1,000 attendees.
Brown also leads the way for the firm’s transactional deal reporting database, Dorsey Deals. Even when it comes to something as minor as an attorney needing help tracking down some obscure bit of information necessary for a presentation, Brown will help make it happen.
“A lot of what I do is so gratifying,” she said. “When it comes to events like the Corporate Counsel Symposium, my goal is to make them seem like they just happen. They don’t need to know all the effort that goes into them.”
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