Catherine Ahlin-Halverson is a staff attorney at ACLU of Minnesota, where she facilitates the Systemic Racism and Native Rights issue team and leads the organization’s five-year initiative to end solitary confinement in Minnesota. Her cross-departmental team works to dismantle racially discriminatory policies in education, housing and employment, while advancing laws protecting Native sovereignty.

Before joining ACLU-MN in November 2023, Ahlin-Halverson spent nearly 19 years at Maslon LLP, rising to partner. As public interest counsel, she led pro bono teams in partnership with the Advocates for Human Rights and the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota. She was part of the Maslon team that secured the vacation of a death sentence by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after the client had spent 10 years on death row.

She also founded UPLIFT Legal Institute for Teens, a legal diversity pipeline program for eighth-grade students culminating in mock trials at the University of Minnesota Law School. Ahlin-Halverson earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Katie Barrett Wiik is a partner at Saul Ewing LLP, where she leads the firm’s national appellate practice and its Minneapolis litigation team. Over two decades of practice, she has served as lead attorney in dozens of appeals, securing favorable outcomes before the Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits, the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Barrett Wiik also chairs Saul Ewing’s pro bono committee, under which she has increased firmwide participation by nearly 50%. She is a co-author of the Minnesota Practice Series: Appellate Rules Annotated (Thomson Reuters) and co-editor of the Eighth Circuit Practice Manual (Minnesota CLE).

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, inducted in 2024, and serves on the Minnesota Supreme Court Historical Society board. Her past leadership roles include president of the Federal Bar Association’s Minnesota chapter, executive board member of the American Bar Association’s Council of Appellate Lawyers, and chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Section.

m boulette is an attorney and founder of boulette PLLC, a Minneapolis-based family law practice. Previously, they served as partner and chair of the family and juvenile law practice group at Taft, where they were the only chair of an AmLaw 100 family law group based in Minneapolis. Their appellate practice includes 11 briefs to the Minnesota Supreme Court and dozens of cases before the Minnesota Court of Appeals.
boulette has been a steadfast pro bono advocate for Native American communities and transgender Minnesotans. They served as the first openly transgender president of the Hennepin County Bar Association and spent seven years on the Minnesota State Bar Association’s board. They are a fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and a member of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association’s Family Law Institute.
boulette is an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and co-author of the Thomson Reuters Minnesota Practice Series volume on family law. They earned their J.D. magna cum laude from the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Thomas H. Boyd is a shareholder at Winthrop & Weinstine PA, where his practice focuses on commercial litigation and civil appeals, including contract disputes, business torts, trust and estate matters, insurance coverage disputes, and land use matters. Over a career spanning decades, he has handled high-stakes litigation and appellate advocacy in state and federal courts nationwide, with extensive experience before the Eighth Circuit and other U.S. Courts of Appeals.

Boyd is a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and an elected member of the American Law Institute. He serves on the Minnesota Board of Law Examiners and co-chairs Winthrop & Weinstine’s pro bono committee. He has taught courses at the University of Minnesota Law School and William Mitchell College of Law.

Boyd earned his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law, where he served as a note and comment editor of the Iowa Law Review. He also holds an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Iowa.

Mark R. Bradford is a partner at Bradford Andresen Norrie & Camarotto who has argued more than 150 appeals in state and federal courts in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. He has tried 16 cases to jury verdict in high-stakes commercial matters, winning all of them.
Bradford is a fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Attorneys, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the International Academy of Trial Attorneys. The Minnesota Supreme Court appointed him to its Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure in 2013, a position he continues to hold. He is also a contributing author of the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Manual.
His pro bono work includes years with the Innocence Project, during which he secured post-conviction relief for a client wrongly convicted of second-degree murder, won on appeal before both the Minnesota Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, and obtained a not guilty verdict at retrial.
Bradford has taught appellate advocacy at the University of St. Thomas School of Law for 14 years.

Jess Braverman is the legal director at Gender Justice, where she leads litigation strategy advancing gender equity, including cases involving abortion rights, transgender rights in schools and prisons, and access to contraception.

Before joining Gender Justice, Braverman worked at the Hennepin County Public Defender’s office, where she represented hundreds of clients in felony matters before spearheading the office’s Special Litigation Unit, focused on racial profiling in policing. Earlier in her career, she represented young people in delinquency and child protection cases at the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Project in Brooklyn, New York.

Braverman led the legal team in Cooper v. USA Powerlifting, in which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that categorically barring transgender women from women’s athletic competitions constitutes discriminatory conduct under the Minnesota Human Rights Act — a decision establishing protections for transgender people across all public accommodations in the state.

Braverman earned her J.D. from NYU School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow with a focus on LGBTQ rights.

Erica Holzer’s appellate practice is backed by a level of institutional engagement that few attorneys achieve — she has served as reporter for three Minnesota Supreme Court Advisory Committees simultaneously, developing proposed rule amendments for the Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure, and General Rules of Practice. A partner and co-chair of the Appellate Practice Group at Maslon LLP, Holzer represents clients in complex commercial disputes spanning tort and product liability, consumer fraud, insurance coverage and breach of contract, with a particular focus on appellate advocacy before state and federal courts.

Before joining Maslon, Holzer clerked for the Honorable Matthew E. Johnson, then chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. She co-authors four treatises on Minnesota civil and appellate law and a chapter in the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Manual.

Her representative appellate matters include securing $40 million in insurance coverage for Life Time Fitness and successfully representing a same-sex couple in a paternity dispute on appeal. She also represented Terry Olson on behalf of the Innocence Project of Minnesota, obtaining his release from prison.

Kay Nord Hunt is an appellate advocate at Lommen Abdo who has handled more than 600 appeals in Minnesota and Wisconsin appellate courts, the Seventh and Eighth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and courts around the country. Her civil practice spans trusts, insurance, employment, contracts, professional liability, family law, medical malpractice, and other areas. She regularly associates with other law firms to assist with their appeals, offering an independent perspective on pivotal issues from the appellate court’s vantage point.
Hunt is a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and a contributing author of the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Deskbook. The Minnesota Supreme Court appointed her to its Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure, and she is a former adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
She has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Appellate Practice and Bet-the-Company Litigation, and is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell.

Erick G. Kaardal, partner at Mohrman Kaardal & Erickson P.A., focuses his practice on appellate and trial court litigation on behalf of citizens, businesses, and landowners in disputes with the government. He has been with the firm since 2000, following earlier positions at Trimble & Associates and Faegre & Benson. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, five federal circuit courts, and numerous federal district courts across the country.

Kaardal has argued and won two U.S. Supreme Court cases: Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, decided 5-4 in 2002, and Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, decided 7-2 in 2018.

Before entering private practice, Kaardal served as a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, retiring at the rank of captain.

He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and his undergraduate degree in economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.

Eric J. Magnuson is a partner at Robins Kaplan LLP whose practice focuses almost exclusively on appeals in state and federal courts. He served as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 2008 to 2010, and over more than 40 years has handled hundreds of appeals spanning public school finance, employment law, trust and probate matters, trade secrets, corporate fraud, insurance law, and professional liability. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and all 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals.

Magnuson is a fellow and past president of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and founding president of the 8th Circuit Bar Association. He chaired the Minnesota Commission on Judicial Selection from 2003 to 2008 and served as special master in Karsjens v. State in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota from 2015 to 2018.

He has served as an associate professor of law at William Mitchell College of Law and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Heather McElroy is a partner at Ciresi Conlin LLP, where she focuses on complex commercial and civil litigation. Her trial practice spans high-stakes antitrust, trade secret, employment, breach-of-contract, class action, and financial matters. Her appellate practice includes arguing before the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eighth, Ninth, and Federal Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Notable representations include serving as co-lead trial counsel in a multi-year Minnesota Environmental Rights Act action on behalf of the White Bear Lake Restoration Association, affirmed by the Minnesota Supreme Court, and achieving a $375 million settlement on behalf of Pine River Capital Management in complex breach-of-contract and trade secret litigation.

Her pro bono work through the Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigrant Law Center has included securing asylum for a Sierra Leone national after five years of proceedings and halting the deportation of workers unlawfully trafficked to the United States during Hurricane Katrina.

Teresa Nelson is the legal director at ACLU of Minnesota, a role she has grown into since joining the organization as a volunteer law clerk in 1995. Over three decades, she has advanced from part-time worker to legal counselor to her current position, helping guide the organization’s expansion from a three-person staff to more than 30 full-time employees serving over 50,000 members and supporters statewide.

Nelson has built a distinguished record in civil rights and civil liberties litigation. She was part of the legal team in Goyette et al. v. City of Minneapolis et al., which secured more than $1.7 million in settlements and systemic law enforcement reforms protecting journalists covering protests. She also served on the team in Ramsey Kettle v. Otter Tail County et al., which achieved a $200,000 settlement and sweeping jail policy reforms following constitutional violations against a pretrial detainee.

Nelson also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.