The last time the 100% Club spotlight shined on Meagher & Geer, the firm was celebrating its 75th anniversary and looking back on its rich and proud history. The women at Meagher & Geer, however, have not stayed focused on the past; instead, they have forged ahead helping to make Meagher & Geer a 21st century law firm able to meet all of its clients’ business and litigation needs.

The firm’s new E-litigation practice group, headed up by partner Paula Weseman Theisen, is a good example of the firm’s ability to respond to the ever-changing practice of law. The E-litigation group provides a variety of services to its clients, ranging from electronic management of files to electronic discovery and trial preparation. Indeed, most attorneys and judges have seen the use of technology in the courtroom skyrocket over the past few years, but it is often not used effectively. That’s the reason tech-savvy Jennifer Ampulski, a commercial-business litigator and a member of the E-litigation practice group, created a CLE to help attorneys learn how they can use technology to help, not hamper, their case.

Three women Meagher & Geer attorneys — Amy Woodworth, Jenneane Jansen, and Kathryn Lindley — have been at the forefront of insurance-coverage issues arising out of state and federal litigation aimed at protecting consumers’ private information and offering protection from unwanted intrusions, such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Others in the insurance-coverage group have likewise been tackling emerging issues of law in that practice area. Laura Hanson, a member of the firm’s management committee who will also serve as Vice Chair for next year’s meeting of the ABA’s insurance-coverage litigation committee, recently authored an article for Claims Magazine entitled “Clear as Mud? Absolute Pollution Exclusion Isn’t so Absolute.” Stacy Broman, who is a partner in the insurance-coverage group and serves as vice chair of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel’s Insurance Coverage and Extra-Contractual Liability sections, successfully represented two insurers in a case that threatened to expand bad-faith law in Minnesota and permit coverage for punitive damages in the absence of express policy language.

Kristine Kubes, an attorney in the construction-law group who represents design professionals and contractors and mediates construction, recently wrote an article about a growing national trend in city planning that allows design professionals to “self-certify” their plans thereby avoiding the city-plan review process. She is also part of a team developing a new national CLE program for the ABA Forum on the Construction Industry that that will teach construction attorneys (old and new) about the fundamentals of construction (masonry, site work, concrete, etc.).


In the past three years, Meagher & Geer has elevated several women to its partnership ranks, and it continues to place women attorneys in firm-leadership positions. In fact, women attorneys head up half of the firm’s twelve practice groups: Cecilie Morris Loidolt, health care; Mary O’Brien, business services; Leatha Wolter, anti-fraud counseling and litigation; Paula Theisen, technology litigation and electronic litigation; and Laura Hanson, insurance coverage. “Meagher & Geer is fortunate to have hard-working attorneys who are committed to excellence,” says Greg Stephens, the firm’s managing partner. One notable example of this kind of practice mastery is Barb Zurek’s recent invitation to fellowship in the American College of Trial Lawyers. Zurek, a health care and professional-liability attorney, will be inducted this fall into the College, widely considered to be the premier professional trial organization in America.

While no one can predict exactly what the future holds for the practice of law, one thing is certain — the women attorneys at Meagher & Geer will be there to meet it head on.


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