I was among the first public defenders in Minnesota to be selected as a super lawyer that was in the mid-1990s and have been on the super lawyer list I think just about every year since then. I don’t want to say absolutely I can’t remember every year since then but I have been a super lawyer I know for the last consecutively probably 12-14 years.

I received a number of awards when I was a public defender for felony trail work. A number of times won the district award for the most felony trials in a year. One award that was very important to me was the special award which the public defender’s office gives called the Clarence Earl Gideon Award, obviously, named after the man in the seminal case that gives rise to the right to counsel. And it’s an award given for a special, an exceptional service to the public defender system and I received the Clarence Earl Gideon Award.