Minnesota Lawyer

Attorney Nancy Haas, who chairs the governmental relations division in Messerli Kramer’s St. Paul office, lobbies on clients’ behalf at every legislative session. Lobbying work aside, a yearly highlight for Haas, a licensed peace officer, is serving on the State Fair police force.

Mark Fiddler’s first career was in the restaurant business. But something was missing. “Serving rich people,” Fiddler said, “wasn’t feeding the intellectual passion and my desire to change the world.”

Charmaine Harris, attorney at Blackwell Burke, brought her medical device expertise out of the lab and into her products liability defense practice in her second career.

Handling appeals and complex motions for all of the firm’s practice areas is challenging but never dull for Katherine (Kate) McBride, partner at Meagher & Geer.

Heidi Neff Christianson, shareholder at Nilan Johnson Lewis, this year began serving what traditionally would be a four-year term as the first female president in the firm’s 22-year history. More significant, Christianson said, is that women are managing partners at only eight of the Twin Cities’ 25 largest law firms.

Felicia Boyd, a partner at Barnes & Thornburg with extensive experience in complex intellectual property disputes, ranked among the “Top 250 Women in IP” in 2018.

David Davenport, shareholder at Winthrop & Weinstine, in recent years has specialized in representing developers in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) disputes.

Morgan Burns, partner at Faegre Baker Daniels, has led more than 100 merger-and-acquisition transactions and more than 100 capital markets transactions.

Dana Bartocci, education and organization development manager for the 4th Judicial District, works to support the court’s mission of providing justice.

Alfred Coleman is the managing partner of the newly opened Minneapolis office of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr