Solicitor General Kramer leaves post to join Dorsey & Whitney

In Brief

• Minnesota Solicitor General Liz Kramer is leaving the Attorney General’s Office after serving since 2019 under Attorney General Keith Ellison.
• Kramer will join Dorsey & Whitney in Minneapolis in September following a tenure leading the state’s appellate and constitutional litigation.
• She successfully defended Gov. Tim Walz’s COVID-19 executive orders and led the Minnesota Supreme Court case resolving the 2025 legislative quorum dispute.
• Deputy Solicitor General Peter Farell has been named acting Solicitor General following Kramer’s departure.

Minnesota Solicitor General Liz Kramer has announced her departure from Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, effective at the end of last week. Attorney General Keith Ellison appointed Kramer as Minnesota’s Solicitor General — the State of Minnesota’s chief appellate and constitutional attorney — at the start of his tenure in January 2019.

According to a news release from Ellison’s office, Kramer quickly built a renewed vision for the solicitor role, reinvigorating the office’s appellate practice and leading some of the state’s landmark litigation this decade. Following her departure, Kramer will join the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney in September in their Minneapolis office.

“I’m grateful to have been able to call Liz Kramer a colleague for the last seven-plus years,” Ellison said in the release. ”I’ve witnessed her sharp legal mind, her skill in handling some of our toughest cases, her gift for leadership, her dedication to representing our client agencies, her creative thinking, her sense of humor, and her strong values. Liz’s tremendous individual contributions are matched by her collaborative spirit — she has been the consummate teammate, quick to share guidance and expertise with her colleagues, and always ready to offer her leadership and insight toward whatever challenges we’ve faced. Liz has helped make me a better attorney general, helped make our office stronger, and helped affect so much positive change for the people of Minnesota.”

“In law school, my dream was to serve as Minnesota’s Solicitor General,” Kramer said in the release. ”I will be forever grateful that AG Ellison entrusted me with the state’s appellate and constitutional litigation. Having the opportunity to shape Minnesota law, especially the interpretation of its constitution, during these significant times has been a privilege. Beyond the cases, I learned from AG Ellison how to create positive organizational culture, how to encourage emerging leaders, and how to maintain a focus on serving the public interest every day. While two terms is the right time for me to serve, I will be a lifelong cheerleader of this Office and my amazing colleagues.”

Before joining the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, Kramer was already a highly experienced litigator and appellate attorney, the release noted. She was a partner at Stinson Leonard Street with 15 years’ tenure, specializing in complex business and construction disputes. Kramer is a past chair of the Appellate Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association and co-founded the Appeals Self-Help Clinic at the Judicial Center, which assists people who are representing themselves in appellate courts. Kramer clerked for former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Helen Meyer and the Minnesota Office of Attorney General. She is a graduate of Yale Law School.

At the Attorney General’s Office, Kramer took on a diverse and robust portfolio. She helped draft Gov. Tim Walz’s health and safety executive orders during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and had a perfect record defending those orders in court, winning all 27 cases. She led the Minnesota Supreme Court case to resolve a constitutional crisis in a tied Minnesota Legislature in 2025. That same year, she built and led the Rule of Law division at the Attorney General’s Office, which has taken on over 70 cases of executive overreach by the federal government since 2025 and helped Minnesota regain over $7.3 billion in funds the federal government illegally and unconstitutionally withheld.

Kramer has been named Attorney of the Year by Minnesota Lawyer three times: in 2016 for her work in founding the Appeals Self-Help Clinic; in 2020 for her work safeguarding the 2020 elections; and in 2025 for leading the case to determine quorum in the tied Minnesota legislature. In 2024, Minnesota Lawyer named Kramer as one of the state’s top women in law.

Attorney General Ellison has named current Deputy Solicitor General Peter Farell as acting Solicitor General.