25 minute read
Impact of Giving
Decades Later, Class of ’76 Honors its Commencement Speaker: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1976
Photos: Public domain and courtesy of University of Minnesota Law School
IN JUNE 1976, a law professor from Columbia University took the stage at Northrop Auditorium to deliver a commencement address that would stick in the minds of that year’s Minnesota Law graduates. The speaker was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would go on to champion litigation on behalf of women’s rights and serve for nearly three decades as a justice on the US Supreme Court.
“It was remarkable that we had this incredibly accomplished woman speaking at our graduation and none of us knew at the time what she would become,” says Cynthia Rosenblatt ’76, founder of the law firm Ross Rosenblatt.
Fast forward to last year, and that same graduating class was planning their 45th reunion. A committee of alumni rallied around the idea of launching a scholarship. Norm Bjornnes ’76, who served as part of the reunion committee, says they thought back to that commencement address and decided to name the scholarship after the late Justice Ginsburg to acknowledge her many accomplishments. There was another reason that it was such a good fit, too: the Class of 1976 had been at the vanguard of a sea change in women’s attendance in law schools.
“The proportion of women in our class was a much higher percentage than previous classes,” says Bjornnes, noting that the committee resolved to make the scholarship open to all applicants but to give precedent to women students. “Between Justice Ginsberg being a pioneer, a thought leader, and a beacon for women, and our class having a spike in women,
Photos: Tony Nelson it seemed fitting that the scholarship should favor women applicants.”
Bjornnes, whose career has focused on real estate law, tax law, and estate planning, is currently of counsel at Mulligan Bjornnes, a firm he founded with a fellow classmate. He recalls his own time in law school fondly.
“My legal education probably made my life as fulfilling as any choice I could have made,” he says. “I made lifelong friends, and it provided an opportunity for me to achieve pretty much of all the dreams I had for myself.”
Hoping to open up this same experience for today’s law students, he and Rosenblatt were among those who made early gifts to the new Class of 1976 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scholarship in Law. Their initiative soon inspired others to band together and contribute their own support. The effort was a success.
This summer, the first recipient of the scholarship was named: Meghan Zula, 1L. Since high school, Zula had known she wanted to study law. The constitutional law classes she took as an undergraduate at Michigan State University only reinforced her interest. Now, she is deciding between a concentration in either business law or intellectual property and technology law.
Considering the cost of pursuing a degree in law—and the debt that would come with it—Zula says the scholarship will make a huge impact in her life.
“It is an incredible honor to have been considered for, and then granted, this scholarship by the Class of 1976, especially with such a large, impactful name attached,” she says. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a lot of people’s role model. She’s someone to aspire to be like and to have as much of an impact as for the better of this country.”
Jean Hanson ’76, who also helped launch the new scholarship, knows what a difference financial support can make. The recipient of another scholarship to which Hanson contributes recently shared that the assistance was the only way she was able to attend law school and pursue her dreams.
“I give from a grateful heart, thankful for what I have received, and I want to make the opportunity that was afforded to me available to others,” says Hanson, a retired partner with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York City and a former general counsel at the US Department of the Treasury. “I asked only that she pay it forward and, if she is able, give a gift to a future student who will follow in her footsteps and, one day, be able to write her a heartfelt letter like the one she had written to me.”
The idea of paying generosity forward resonates with Rosenblatt. It’s one reason she sees the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scholarship as such an important opportunity for her graduating class.
“The Class of ’76 is at a point in their lives when they can afford to be generous; we should all be giving back by now,” she says. “To know that there’s somebody out there who’s benefiting from this scholarship is just terrific.”
Cynthia Rosenblatt ’76
By Kevin Coss, a Twin Cities-based freelance writer.
Norm Bjornnes ’76
Meghan Zula, 1L
Photo: Cory Ryan
Innovation, flexibility, and empathy are essential in addressing rapidly evolving workplace and client expectations, firm leaders say
Minnesota Law alumni leading law firms and offices are navigating a rapidly changing world and profession. They’re contending with rising salaries, a press for work-life balance and greater diversity, and even existential questions about how or whether to return to the office.
Much of the change comes in the wake of a global pandemic that forced law firms to work remotely. The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked racial and social justice movements across the country and around the world, is also driving change.
Recognizing the transformative impact of the past few years on the traditional way many firms worked, alumni leaders say flexibility, compassion, and empathy are key to adapting to this fluid new environment.
The need to change inevitably collides with a profession that often, by training, resists or is suspicious of change, says Peter Michaud ’97, chair-elect at Ballard Spahr LLP.
“It is challenging but I think also an exciting time,” Michaud says. “We have come to realize that the path is not always the same for every person.”
What worked for firms and clients in the past is not the only way to get things done, says Eva Weiler ’04, managing partner of the Orange County, Calif., office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
“For me, it’s trying to recognize that maybe the old school pattern of working in the office for X number of hours, Y days per week is perhaps antiquated, and we need to rethink how the actual attorney population that’s working for us now wants to live,” Weiler said.
Roshan Rajkumar ‘00, managing partner of Bowman and Brooke’s Minneapolis office and chair of the firm’s diversity and inclusion committee, said the office now includes 11 attorneys and staff members working remotely. In 2018, that number was zero.
“This is us being flexible,” Rajkumar says. “It's keeping me up at night just trying to figure out, how do we keep everyone together? When change happens, you have to be willing to meet it.”
Several alumni leaders of large and mid-sized law firms and offices shared their perspectives on the issues they are addressing to better position their firms in this new world. CONT >
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Starting pay
All of the alumni leaders interviewed said their firms raised associate starting salaries in the last two years.
Kristin Zinsmaster ’10, hiring partner in the Minneapolis office of Jones Day, said that, like other global and national law firms in the Twin Cities, Jones Day has made a “dramatic” adjustment to starting associate salaries over the last several years.
“We are trying to recruit the best talent and we recognize that most people coming out of law school have student loans and other bills to pay,” Zinsmaster says.
At Maslon LLP, the Minneapolis firm made two significant upward salary adjustments last year, says Keiko Sugisaka ’96, chair of the firm’s governance committee. The highest starting salary for law firms in the Twin Cities now is $220,000, compared to approximately $170,000 at the beginning of 2021.
Higher pay, however, can increase billing pressure on associates when firms also raise their billable hour goals, as Maslon did, Sugisaka says. Maslon, though, credits up to 100 hours of pro bono work as billable and is adding diversity, equity, and inclusion work to count toward billable hour goals.
Barbara Duffy ’89, president of Lane Powell PC in Seattle, says the firm took a unique approach to associate compensation changes, increasing salaries and bonuses while also lowering required billable hours from 1,850 to 1,750. Associates can receive credit for 100 hours of pro bono, diversity, equity and inclusion and wellbeing efforts. They also get bonuses for working more hours, but the firm caps the number of hours for which bonuses are available.
“We don’t think our associates do their best work in their 2,450th hour,” Duffy says. “We’re just trying to create the right incentives while not creating an environment where all incentives are to just bill, bill, bill.”
In Minneapolis, Bowman and Brooke raised its starting salary to $130,000, up from $115,000, Rajkumar says. But even with the increase, the national litigation boutique firm finds it difficult to compete with the $200,000 starting pay at higher grossing national firms. To boost recruiting, Rajkumar counts on the firm’s ability to offer work-life balance and immediate opportunities for litigation and client connections.
“The top-of-their-class first-, second-, and third-year associates will have a variety of options and highly competitive compensation,” Rajkumar says. “This means we’ve been focusing on talent from firms smaller than us or the same size, so it’s changed how we’re going after people.”
Many people are saying, ‘If I don’t want to be on the partnership track, is that okay? For me, it is. I’ve had to teach my partners within the firm that it’s okay. There are a lot of people who want the work-life balance or they just want the flexibility and they don’t want the responsibility of business development or leadership.”
ROSHAN RAJKUMAR ’00
Managing Partner, Bowman and Brooke
Minneapolis
Back to the office?
Only one of the firms interviewed—Jones Day’s Minneapolis location—is back in the office five days a week, albeit with significant flexibility afforded to both lawyers and staff. The firm, with 40 lawyers in Minneapolis and more than 2,500 around the world, is not recruiting based on a promise of hybrid work.
“We believe that law is best practiced—the craft of practicing law, if you will, is best developed—and our clients are best served when lawyers are in connection with each other,” Zinsmaster says. “We think that is most easily and authentically achieved when we're in the office, collaborating.”
Working remotely offers some benefits, and the Jones Day office largely operated efficiently and cost-effectively during pandemic-related shutdowns, says Zinsmaster. “But we're balancing those against what we really feel is a need to work together in person to build the lasting friendships and the long-term commitment to our team and the institution, and we think this is the way to do it,” she says.
Zinsmaster says this approach has worked for the law students she has interviewed.
“People who experienced online school seem hungry for an opportunity to be in person,” Zinsmaster says. “They tell us and we see it because they’re here, they’re ready to be in person, which we welcome.”
Bowman and Brooke’s office, with 25 attorneys, is fully remote, but hybrid in practice, Rajkumar said. He and his partners and non-attorney directors discussed a possible return to the office two days a week beginning in September. However, after much discussion at all levels, the Minneapolis office will be a place where team members will put time in the office as needed, whether that is zero or five days a week.
“We know there’s going to be some backlash,” Rajkumar said. “Everyone’s asking why do this when everyone’s being productive and the numbers are showing 2022 is going to be a great year for the firm as a whole. But at the same time, there’s something lost when we’re not seeing each other, when associates don’t come up to my door to ask a question or I can’t grab them to go have a coffee or a lunch.”
Those taking care of vulnerable adults or sick children, for example, will get some consideration. “We’re going to have compassion in that regard,” Rajkumar says.
Some recent hires are accepting less money to work remotely, Rajkumar says, coming in only as needed for meetings or social events. On a given day, approximately 30 to 40 people are in the office.
EVA WEILER ’04
Managing Partner, Orange County,
California office, Shook Hardy & Bacon
Maslon would like people to be in the office three days a week, but Sugisaka says there is flexibility with that standard. “We understand lots of things happen in people’s lives where that may not work in a given week.”
The firm continues to see the value in bringing people together in person. Practice leaders are having in-office meetings with their groups, and Maslon offers on-site training programs and is intentional about establishing mentoring relationships for associates if those are not developing naturally, Sugisaka says. The firm also offers opportunities on pro bono cases or affinity bar work to help develop networks and professional skills.
Shook, Hardy & Bacon’s Orange County office is encouraging attorneys to work on site three days a week, Weiler says.
“There’s a fundamental attitude change that’s occurred,” Weiler says. “People have gotten accustomed to working at home and are quite productive and efficient, depending on the person. We’re still figuring out what makes the most sense for our teams, whether it’s litigation-specific, case-specific or team-specific. There’s much more flexibility to what we’re doing now.”
Lane Powell has embraced a flexible, hybrid work environment, Duffy says, with workforce survey data supporting that choice. The firm has reduced its office space in both Seattle and Portland.
“It’s our way of putting our money where our mouth is,” Duffy says of the smaller office footprint. “We just cannot lose our connection to each other because it’s vital to high-functioning teams and great client service.”
Practice teams are scheduling events and workplace meetings one day per week, Duffy says, as well as bringing people into the office for a purpose, such as on-site trainings, to keep teams bonded. The firm encourages associates to attend in-office events and to work in the office most days for their first eight weeks to get to know their teams.
Ballard Spahr also has adopted a hybrid model of three days per week in the office.
“I think the days of attorneys being expected to be in the office five days a week is a thing of the past,” Michaud says. “I don’t see that ever coming back, because we’ve seen now that we can work from home and be productive and still do what our clients need us to do.”
Culture is an important part of a firm, too, and nothing builds culture and collaboration like working in person, Michaud says. Ballard Spahr takes steps to make sure that attorneys interact when they are in the office, having lunches brought in or setting up happy hours in the common areas of the office.
“People work hard, and they really are trying their best,” says Michaud, who will succeed Ballard Spahr chair Mark Stewart in January 2024. “There are so many things going on in the world that can get in the way of doing your job and we want to help people through that. The one word that I think has made a difference in Mark’s leadership and, honestly the one thing that I will focus on when I become chair, that will be important to me, is empathy.”
We believe that law is best practiced— the craft of practicing law, if you will, is best developed—and our clients are best served when lawyers are in connection with each other. We think that is most easily and authentically achieved when we're in the office, collaborating.”
KRISTIN ZINSMASTER ’10
Hiring Partner, Jones Day
Minneapolis
Next-generation expectations
Newer attorneys are more vocal about their desire for work-life balance. They want to see and take part in diversity initiatives and work with diverse colleagues. Some associates and even senior attorneys are ambivalent about working toward partnership.
“Many law students and associates who might be transferring in are looking for greater autonomy in their ability to kind of dictate what they’re doing and not doing,” Weiler, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon’s Orange County office says. “There seems to be a greater desire to shape the way their work-life balance exists.”
At Maslon, where partner Steve Schleicher served pro bono as a special prosecutor in the Floyd murder trial, Sugisaka says younger attorneys want to do “meaningful work.”
“They want to have the opportunity to work where they can make a broader impact on social issues,” Sugisaka says. “The murder of George Floyd really heightened the awareness of racial equity issues in a way that probably hasn’t been matched since the ’60s.”
Diversity among the firm’s ranks is of great interest to summer associates at Ballard Spahr, where Michaud will be first openly gay person to serve as the firm’s chair.
“Law schools in general are more diverse and because law students are interacting with a more diverse group of people, they’re seeing the value in that, and that matters to them,” Michaud says. “I’m a diverse person, so it’s top of mind to me. We are very focused on diversity and making sure that we do not just hire diverse attorneys but that we create an atmosphere where they are valued and want to stay.”
The market for diverse attorneys is highly competitive, Rajkumar says, adding that recruits to Bowman and Brooke in Minneapolis often get hired away for substantially more money. He and partners in other offices have found some success in reaching out to diverse counterparts at other firms or in the public sector.
The traditional model of working late nights and weekends for a shot at a partnership is not what many students and some experienced attorneys want now, Michaud says.
“In the last few years, students are more likely to tell us what they want and tell us what they’re looking for, and that’s a good thing,” Michaud says. “They want work-life balance and some associates want to know if there’s flexibility in how much that they have to work, flexibility in terms of even maybe they don’t want to be partner.”
Weiler also senses that changing attitude toward partnership.
“I think that quite possibility is a reality but I’ve had no one with the chutzpah to actually say it,” Weiler says.
Rajkumar has heard that, from newer attorneys and from partners who left other firms to join Bowman and Brooke as senior counsel. In 68 attorney interviews from February through July, only three candidates asked about partnership track.
“Many people are saying, ‘If I don’t want to be on the partnership track, is that okay?’” Rajkumar says. “For me, it is. I’ve had to teach my partners within the firm that it’s okay. There are a lot of people who want the work-life balance or they just want the flexibility and they don’t want the responsibility of business development or leadership.”
Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.
[Younger attorneys] want to have the opportunity to work where they can make a broader impact on social issues. The murder of George Floyd really heightened the awareness of racial equity issues in a way that probably hasn’t been matched since the ’60s.”
KEIKO SUGISAKA ’96 Governance Committee Chair, Maslon LLP Minneapolis
From ADVOCATE to JUDGE
Photo: Jay Mallin
After a career as a civil rights lawyer, Ajmel Quereshi ’07 last spring became a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Maryland.
Ajmel Quereshi ’07 is taking his commitment to public service law to a new level with his appointment as a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Quereshi took his oath of office last April after the judges of the district announced his selection from a slate of candidates.
“I have had the opportunity to engage in public service in a variety of different ways — as a law school professor, a civil rights litigator, a federal law clerk — all while working on civil rights issues at the national and local levels,” Quereshi says. “I am excited to continue working in the interests of the public but to do it in a different sphere with new challenges, new responsibilities and new expectations.”
One exciting aspect of the new job, Quereshi says, is the variety of issues he deals with daily. Magistrate judges have the authority to issue warrants, conduct preliminary proceedings such as initial appearances and arraignments, and hear cases involving petty offenses committed on federal lands. They also handle pretrial motions and hearings in civil and criminal cases. Magistrate judges also make bail determinations under the Bail Reform Act of 1984.
“Even for someone who pictured himself as a generalist, it is very rare as far as I know for anyone working in the legal field to one day be working on an issue under the Bail Reform Act, the next day be helping to settle an employment discrimination case and the next day be writing regarding a class-action issue,” Quereshi says.
— U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE AJMEL QUERESHI ’07
Devotion to Public Service
Quereshi attributes his devotion to public service to experiences attending inner-city, predominantly minority public schools in Milwaukee, where he observed that “not all structures and systems in society provide equal opportunity to all individuals.” Also influential for Quereshi, as the son of Pakistani-American immigrants, was seeing the challenges that immigrants face.
While he’s no longer an advocate, he remains committed to inclusivity. “I still have a responsibility as a judge, as I did when I was an attorney, to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to be equally heard, and that the doors to the courthouse, metaphorically speaking, are open to all,” Quereshi observes.
The Law School’s renowned human rights program and the opportunity to work with Professor David Weissbrodt, the distinguished human rights law scholar who passed away late last year, drew Quereshi to Minnesota from Wisconsin. He also appreciated support and guidance from Professors Kristin Hickman, Michael Tonry and Brad Karkkainen. Quereshi returned to the Law School in 2017 to speak to those interested about following a public-service career path similar to his.
Civil Rights Advocate
Before his appointment as magistrate judge, Quereshi worked for more than seven years as senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He also has served as staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, a visiting assistant professor at Howard University Law School and a federal law clerk.
He was a Skadden Fellow at the ACLU of Maryland and received a Wasserstein Fellowship from Harvard Law School, a recognition for lawyers committed to mentoring junior lawyers committed to public service. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, English and History from Marquette University.
“I had really wonderful parents who were tremendously supportive,” Quereshi says. “In law school, the places I worked at, where I interned, and after I became a lawyer, senior lawyers were always incredibly generous with their time, support and advice. It’s humbling to know that anything that I’ve done so far, and anything that I will do, is a product of other people supporting me. I hope to pay that forward to other people who are looking for similar advice, guidance and support in following a career in public service.”
THEORY at WORK
A TAX & HEALTH PROFESSOR WITH A PENCHANT FOR PENSIONS
Professor Amy Monahan’s nationally recognized acumen and insights straddle multiple fields
BY CATHY MADISON
Tax class may evoke fear in the minds of many lawyers, but Professor Amy Monahan is not one of those. As a law student, she mastered math and is now admired by colleagues for her rare ability to not only navigate intricate financial detail but also predict its ramifications in the real world. She is widely recognized across the country for her painstaking and influential work in public pensions and health care reform.
“A great big nerd who gets curious about intractable problems that other people find overwhelming” is how Professor William McGeveran describes Monahan, who was awarded the American Law Institute's prestigious Young Scholars Medal in 2013. Few others embrace what he calls the “rococo logic puzzle of federal law,” where each piece affects every other piece in ways unforeseen by many. Whether she is tackling an unfunded pension crisis or how to provide health care to uninsured Americans, “Every time she writes an article, it’s because she has perceived some kind of problem those complicated laws will cause ordinary people,” McGeveran says.
A native Californian educated at Johns Hopkins University and Duke University School of Law, Monahan first considered international law, signing up for a tax law class only because “they said everyone should take tax law,” she says. “I thought it would be awful, but I ended up enjoying it.” As a summer associate, she pursued various avenues but discovered a home in the employee benefits practice group. Like tax law, employee benefits law involved “that detailed sort of puzzle created by complex statutes and accompanying regulations, but it was also about people,” she says. “For me it was a great mix of highly technical legal reasoning and subject matter that was inherently interesting.”
Monahan practiced with Sidley Austin LLP, Chicago, before she began teaching at Notre Dame and the University of Missouri law schools. In 2009, shortly before she left Missouri to join the Minnesota Law faculty, her academic career took a significant detour. “An economist walked across the quad to ask if I knew anything about state and local pension plans,” she explains. “I said no. He was hoping to convince me to write a paper on a topic that no one seemed to know anything about.”
The paper he convinced her to write, for a conference on teacher pensions, propelled her into the public policy arena. The California Supreme Court, for example, cited her work in a 2019 pension case. She speaks frequently about the legal issues surrounding public pension plans at national conferences attended by state legislators, state and city budget officers, and municipal lenders.
“In many states and cities, politicians want to do the right thing,” she says. “My role is helping them understand what the law allows or doesn’t allow them to do.” That law can apply to a pension plan’s front end as a tool to force contributions, in the middle to manage funds, or at the back end to address potential shortfalls. Apart from economists, Monahan says, few understand how distressed state and local pension plans can affect all of us.
In 2010-11, Monahan served on the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Determination of Essential Health Benefits, where helping to define which medical treatments and services health insurance plans must cover as part of the Affordable Care Act was a career highlight. “I got to see policy-making up close,” she says, noting that even though the approach recommended in the consensus report she and her colleagues created was not implemented due to political considerations, she learned valuable lessons.
Named a Stanley V. Kinyon Teacher of the Year in 2022, Monahan shares such lessons with enthusiasm, standing in front of the classroom, touchscreen in hand, scratching notes, walking her students through a particular thought process. “For something as abstract as employee benefits tax code, it’s hands-on,” McGeveran says.
“It’s really fun for me to teach,” Monahan says. She is delighted when students pursue an employee benefits practice and equally happy to facilitate their understanding of the economic life skills they will need in the real world, as future employees and eventual retirees.
“One of her specialties is playing things out six steps ahead,” adds McGeveran, who also cites Monahan’s participation in daily Zoom meetings during the pandemic while she was serving as associate dean. Her careful, analytical, thoughtful approach to the contemporary puzzle of masks, testing, and science was vital in getting the Law School through that time, he says. “She sees untangling the knots as a means to an end. She thinks about what effect it’s going to have. That is why her work is actually influencing public policy.”
Cathy Madison is a Twin Cities-based freelance writer.
