Taft Partner Victoria Brenner concentrates her practice on family law, representing high net worth individuals in custody, parenting time, child support, orders for protection, spousal maintenance, divorce, divorces involving closely held businesses, and post-divorce matters. She serves as a Rule 17 Guardian ad Litem and a Rule 53 Special Master and sits on Taft’s Executive Committee.

Brenner is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and holds memberships in the Minnesota State Bar Association, Hennepin County Bar Association and Ramsey County Bar Association. She has served as past president of the Warren E. Burger Inn of Court and past board chair of the Minnesota Justice Foundation.

She founded the Ramsey County Veterans’ Limited Scope Legal Services Program and currently teaches Domestic Violence & the Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. She has written and presented extensively on closely held business divorces, spousal maintenance, family law appeals, attorney ethics and grandparent rights.

Lisa Watson Cyr, attorney at Bowden Cyr, PLLC, has devoted her practice exclusively to divorce and family law since her admission to the Minnesota Bar in 1998. She represents clients in divorce, custody, parenting time, child support, spousal maintenance, property valuation and division, and paternity matters.
Watson Cyr is an experienced litigator who has represented hundreds of clients in court, while prioritizing negotiated settlements through mediation and alternative dispute resolution. She has served as co-chair of the Ramsey County Bar Association’s family law section and holds membership in the Minnesota State Bar Association, Washington County Bar Association and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.
She is an active pro bono volunteer, serving clients through the Ramsey County Family Court Legal Clinic since 2003 and Washington County Legal Assistance since 2009.
Watson Cyr earned her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul in 1998.

Gary Debele, attorney and chair of the Family Law Group at Messerli Kramer, has focused his practice exclusively on family law since 1991. His practice extends well beyond conventional divorce and custody matters to encompass specialized areas including complex closely held family business divorces, interstate and international custody disputes, child protection matters, tribal court proceedings and family formation.

Debele’s family formation practice covers all types of adoptions, from stepparent and interstate to international and contested adoptions, as well as matters arising under the Indian Child Welfare Act. He has extensive experience in assisted reproduction and surrogacy, including drafting donor contracts, gestational carrier and traditional surrogate agreements, and establishing parentage domestically and internationally. He also maintains a robust tribal court practice encompassing family law, child welfare matters, and conservatorships and guardianships.

Debele is a certified mediator and member of the Collaborative Law Institute. He holds memberships in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the International Academy of Family Law Attorneys and the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys.

Kathryn A. Graves, of counsel at Henson Efron, has practiced family law for more than 40 years, representing clients in divorce, child custody and support proceedings, parenting time matters, post-decree proceedings, prenuptial, postnuptial and cohabitation agreements, and family law appeals. She relies primarily on alternative dispute resolution, with a particular focus on mediation in divorce matters.
Graves serves as a financial early neutral evaluator in Dakota, Hennepin and Ramsey counties and as an adult guardian ad litem in Anoka, Hennepin and Ramsey counties. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and sits on the Minnesota Board of Marriage and Family Therapy, where she has served as chair and vice chair and continues as a complaint panel member. She holds memberships in the Minnesota State Bar Association, Hennepin County Bar Association and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.
Graves has volunteered with the Volunteer Lawyers Network since 1993 and Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services since 1985.

Honsa Mara & Kanne Partner Anne Honsa has practiced exclusively in family law for more than 35 years, with recognized expertise in complex financial matters including business, property and asset valuation, non-marital property and spousal maintenance. She has handled appellate court representation across numerous family law cases in the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Honsa is board-certified in family law trial advocacy by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, where she served as president from 2015 to 2017, co-chaired the membership and mentoring committee from 2011 to 2015, and served as external relations vice president from 2012 to 2015. She was appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court to the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board in 2013 and reappointed in 2016.

Honsa holds memberships in the American Bar Association, Minnesota State Bar Association, Hennepin County Bar Association and Ramsey County Bar Association, all in their family law sections.

Dorsey & Whitney LLP Partner Bridget Logstrom Koci has spent more than 40 years advising generations of families on trust and estate planning matters. Her practice encompasses wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives, prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements, family business succession planning, charitable planning, and probate and trust administration. She also assists clients in resolving estate and trust litigation disputes and tax controversies.

Logstrom Koci is a longstanding fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), where she serves as membership selection chair and previously served as Minnesota state chair and regent. She is also a steering committee member of the Cambridge Forum on Private Wealth Litigation.

She holds memberships in the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Probate and Trust Law Section, where she previously served as co-chair of the litigation committee.

Logstrom Koci earned her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in 1983.

B. Steven Messick, attorney and owner of Messick Law, PLLC, has practiced across the state for more than 10 years, concentrating on trust and estate litigation, probate and estate planning, civil litigation, real estate and mediation.

He represents clients in probate and civil litigation matters including trust and estate disputes, construction and business disputes, guardianship and conservatorship proceedings and real property actions, and serves as a mediator in family, probate and civil disputes.

His representative matters include successfully defending a multi-week trial challenging a decedent’s will, trust and non-probate transfers; resolving multi-year, multi-generation will and trust contest litigation in his client’s favor; and protecting a financially and emotionally exploited person through a contested trial resulting in the appointment of a guardian and conservator. He has also reopened a four-decade-old court order in an estate to correct a property legal description, enabling beneficiaries to sell the property and collect proceeds.

Alison Midden, partner and co-chair of the Private Client and Estate Planning practice group at Taft, focuses her practice on estate planning, estate and trust administration, guardianships and conservatorships, and nonprofit and charitable planning. She advises clients on estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes, charitable and asset-protection planning, and disability planning, and represents trustees, guardians and conservators in probate court and fiduciary litigation.

Midden designs estate plans using wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives and antenuptial agreements, and guides families through wealth-transfer techniques including grantor trusts, grantor-retained annuity trusts, generation-skipping transfer tax trusts and charitable trusts. She also represents Wisconsin residents in creating marital property agreements. Her courtroom experience includes representing personal representatives in will challenges, corporate trustees seeking court instruction, and trustees of court-supervised charitable and non-charitable trusts.

Midden forms private family foundations and public charities and advises tax-exempt organizations on governance, structure and compliance with federal and state tax law.

Tessa Mielke, partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, serves as co-chair of the firm’s Tax, Trusts & Estates Group. Her practice encompasses tax and estate planning, business succession planning, estate and trust administration, and estate, gift and income tax controversies. She helps clients design comprehensive estate plans for tax-efficient transfers of wealth across generations, advises on income tax and retirement planning, and represents taxpayers in federal and state tax controversies.

She is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Probate and Trust Law Section Legislation Committee.

“Tessa has built a broad and sophisticated practice, assisting clients with every facet of wealth management. Her approach is both strategic and personal, as she helps clients plan for and manage tax-efficient transfers of wealth to future generations. She consistently provides thoughtful advice and represents clients with skill and integrity,” said Peter Nelson, Dorsey’s managing partner.

Kathleen M. Newman, partner at DeWitt Law Firm, concentrates her practice on divorce and family law, with particular emphasis on complex cases involving closely held corporations, professional practices, high net worth estates and parental alienation. She represents clients in discovery, negotiation and court proceedings, assertively pursuing their interests through and after the divorce process.
Newman is board-certified as a family law trial advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy and serves as a qualified neutral under Rule 114 of the Minnesota Supreme Court. She is approved for inclusion in the Minnesota ADR Statewide Neutrals Roster in all categories of family neutrals and sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court’s list of appellate mediators. She has represented clients in mediation for more than 20 years.
A fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Newman holds memberships in the Hennepin County Bar Association, Minnesota State Bar Association and American Bar Association.

Michael Sampson, partner and chair of the Estate Planning Group at Maslon LLP, has represented clients in high-end estate and tax planning, estate and trust administration, charitable planning and business succession planning for more than 25 years.

Sampson is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and is ranked Band 1 in Chambers USA for High Net Worth/Private Wealth Law. As part of his leadership in the Minnesota State Bar Association, he served on the special subcommittee that wrote the current Minnesota Trust Code and continues to serve on the MSBA Probate, Trusts and Estates Section Legislation Committee. The section named him the 2024 recipient of its Gene Daly Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions of time, energy and talent to the estate planning and probate practice.

Sampson has served as adjunct faculty at local law schools for 18 years, including teaching Wills, Trusts & Estates at the University of Minnesota for the past four years. He is also a highly sought-after speaker at continuing legal education seminars.