Breaking the Ice: State CLE board chair lauds in-person education

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Taft’s Minneapolis partner-in-charge, Justin Weinberg, is working to ensure that lawyers have access to continuing legal education that will help them keep pace with changes in the law, technology and client needs as chair of the Minnesota CLE Board of Directors.

After the pandemic, Weinberg said, Minnesota CLE faced questions about how lawyers want to engage with programming and take part in their required continuing education. One response has been to renovate Minnesota CLE’s conference center, which opened in November.

“Minnesota CLE has a strong belief that in-person seminars and classes make for not only the best learning but also strengthen the community of the Minnesota bar,” Weinberg said.

In his practice, Weinberg is outside general counsel, often with clients in real estate development and construction. This year has been active in areas including data centers, infrastructure and industrial, he said. He expects 2026 to be “busy and tight” with owners, lenders and contractors “more cautious and disciplined when they’re looking at risk, timing and cost as compared to some previous cycles.”

Name: Justin Weinberg

Title: Minneapolis partner-in-charge, Taft /Taft Stettinius & Hollister

Education: B.A., political science and speech communications, St. Cloud State University; J.D., William Mitchell College of Law

Q: Best way to start a conversation with you?

A: Don’t talk about the weather, as Minnesotans are apt to do. Tell me something that you’re doing that really interests you, more so than the standard small talk.

Q: Why law school?

A: I knew going into college that I was going to go to law school. My uncle was a lawyer in the Quad Cities in Iowa. He worked on the criminal justice side, as a prosecutor and a public defender. So, getting into court and doing those types of things really interested me. We were pretty close, so that really sparked my interest to be a lawyer, though on a totally different path.

Q: What are you reading?

A: I listen to a lot of books, since I read all day for my job. I’ve been doing mostly the biographies by Ron Chernow. I just finished “Grant” and I think I’ll probably take up “Hamilton” next.

Q: Pet peeve?

A: A lack of genuineness, when people are not being genuine and authentic.

Q: Best part of your work?

A: Getting to be that trusted partner for my clients and, helping them navigate day to day. Getting those phone calls on something that may be outside the box and doesn’t fit squarely within legal, that’s my best day, because then I know that the clients trust me, and they want me to be a part of their solution and help them get there.

Q: Most challenging?

A: When clients are looking for absolute certainty and not being able to give it to them.

Q: Where would you take someone visiting your hometown?

A: In the Twin Cities, I see if there is a show running at the Guthrie. It’s one of the gems of our state and our region and, frankly, the country.

Q: Legal figure you admire?

A: [Former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice] Sam Hanson. I met him when I was in law school, and I was the Student Bar Association president at William Mitchell. He was the chair of the trustees at the time, so I got to meet him then. Fast-forward 15 years into my career, and I had the ability to be his partner at Briggs & Morgan. When you talk about collegiality, knowing full well that we can be adversaries and having two different sides, Sam Hanson just embodies that.

Q: Misconception about your work?

A: That we are a jack of all trades. As the law has evolved and client needs have evolved, it’s very, very difficult to do that anymore. That is probably the biggest misconception, that lawyers know everything about law.

Q: Favorite book, movie or TV show about lawyers?

A: “Law & Order” taught me everything I needed to know in law school. It got me through it. So, the original “Law & Order” back when I was going through law school.