I’m from Winona here and I went the University of Minnesota law school graduated in 1982. From there, I went to one of the biggest law firms in the state and worked in civil litigation for about four or five years. After that, I came back to my hometown here. Actually, the at that time senior partner in this firm was someone I had known since I was five-years old. Had a daughter in my grade school class and our families went to the same church, so Dick Darby brought me back into the firm here in Winona. And up until that time I’d handled civil cases, all court room work but all civil. And Mike Price here at the firm introduced me to criminal defense and started teaching me criminal defense and I fell in love with it.

From there, the other significant thing Mike did for me is got me a job teaching at Winona State University where I started teaching courses in criminal law and the constitution and criminal law and really deepened my understanding of the importance of the constitution in our criminal justice system. And so they kind of came together to really fuel a passion for representing individuals as well as representing the constitution in the courtroom.