Minnesota Lawyer

Working at Emily’s List in Washington, D.C., was more about politics and less about making policy, so Sybil Dunlop went to law school at Vanderbilt where a profes-sor put her in contact with U.S. District Court Judge James Rosenbaum.

Deborah Ellingboe started with then Faegre & Benson in 1997 and is now head of the litigation practice group at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, having gone through two mergers with the firm.

In 2007, securities regulators approved a merger between the enforcement arms of the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Securities Deal-ers, creating a single watchdog for brokers from Wall Street to Main Street.

When a company runs into trouble either from the inside or the outside, an investigation follows.

Thomas Hamlin is one of the only two lawyers at Robins Kaplan to recover more than a billion dollars in two cases.

It’s been about three years since 3M settled PFAS claims with the state of Minnesota, paying $85 million in damages for water pollution from the chemicals and bringing the issue to most Minnesotans’ attention.

The challenge of business litigation is anticipating problems and managing risk, according to Randall Kahnke of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

Kathy Kimmel has been an equity partner in law firms since 2001, practicing in the areas of fiduciary issues, health care employment and business torts at Fox Roth-schild LLP.

James Langdon started at Dorsey & Whitney LLP shortly before the 1987 stock market crash, and he still practices there, representing financial services and public company clients as well as others.

More than five years after opening his own law firm with some colleagues, Christopher Madel is still having a ball. “I still pinch myself,” he said. “Every day is pure adventure.”