2022 Unsung Legal Heroes: Vic Rattanasithy

Messerli & Kramer P.A.

At the Minneapolis law firm of Messerli & Kramer P.A., when a computer freeze-up or other technical glitch creates problems, senior support and systems analyst Vic Rattanasithy often gets the call for help.

Rattanasithy, who joined the firm’s growing IT department in 2015, said he had a longtime interest in “the technology around computers and video games,” dating back to middle school.  He was able to develop and sharpen his IT skills while serving in the U.S. Army from 2000 to 2005. After his service ended, he attended ITT Technical Institute in Eden Prairie, graduating in 2008. He then spent three years working for the U.S. Postal Service’s IT support division, based in Eagan.

Rattanasithy was working for Loffler Cos. as a managed service provider in 2015, when Messerli & Kramer recruited him to make a job change.

He enjoys the variety offered by his current position, which involves “a little bit of everything” in the IT help category. And, of course, there are the occasional urgent project deadlines which often extend the workday.

Training employees to use always-evolving software and hardware is also part of Rattanasithy’s job description, a function which became especially vital during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when businesses needed to quickly pivot to a remote, “virtual desktop” environment. Along with tech knowledge, the work also requires well-developed communication skills to make highly technical concepts easily grasped by laypeople who use the system.

With the firm’s attorneys often working remotely from various locations — even in pre-pandemic times — Rattanasithy and his department colleagues provide them with the updated software needed to securely connect to the firm’s virtual computer. Putting the firm’s data infrastructure together involves a great deal of behind-the-scenes work which most system users never see.

Rattanasithy said the most memorable stretch of his time with the firm (so far) was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he and the team went to work “setting everybody up and making sure everybody has the ability to connect to the system from home.” The tech advancements achieved during the pandemic will continue to help the firm work effectively going forward, he believes.

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