Book Editors
George Beck is a retired Administrative Law Judge who held that position for 29 years. Since retiring he has worked as an arbitrator. He is a co-editor and a chapter author of all three editions of Minnesota Administrative Procedure. Judge Beck is a past Chair of the Administrative Law Section and currently is Chair of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the University of Minnesota Law School.
Mehmet Konar-Steenberg teaches and writes about administrative law, constitutional law, and environmental law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. In 2012 he was named to the Briggs & Morgan/Xcel Energy Chair in Energy and Environmental Law.
Web Editor
Sean Felhofer is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at the Warren E. Burger Library of the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. He collaborates with faculty, students, and staff to create and maintain online resource collections. He is also the Library’s primary cataloger and software administrator.
Chapter Editors
Mike Ahern is Of Counsel in Dorsey & Whitney’s Regulatory Affairs Practice Group. Mike has decades of experience representing state regulated businesses at the Legislature and before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, the Department of Commerce, the Pollution Control Agency and other State regulatory bodies. Recognized as one of Minnesota’s leading attorneys in administrative, regulatory, and environmental law, Mike is also the Chair of Dorsey’s Legislative Practice Group. He is also a former chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section and the Hennepin County Bar Association’s Environmental Law Committee as well as the former president of the Minnesota Governmental Relations Council. Mike earned his B.A. in 1973 at the University of Minnesota and his J.D. in 1977 from William Mitchell College of Law.
Neal Axton is a research & instructional librarian at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Neal teaches courses in Disaster Law and Advanced Legal Research as well as co-directing Mitchell’s Veterans Law Clinic. Neal is the webmaster for the Minnesota Association of Law Libraries and volunteers with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Citizens’ Civil Defense Corps. Neal is a ride leader with the Midtown Greenway Coalition’s Trailwatch, a bicycle-borne community safety patrol in Minneapolis. You can learn more about Neal at http://www.linkedin.com/in/nealaxton.
Lynn Belgea is an attorney in the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) legal unit and is the MDH data practices coordinator and data practices compliance official. She has been employed by MDH since 2006, after fifteen years of general government practice in the Metropolitan Council Office of General Counsel. Ms. Belgea earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Minnesota and her J.D., summa cum laude, from William Mitchell College of Law. She is admitted to practice in state and federal court in Minnesota and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Belgea is serving her second term as co-chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Public Law Section Executive Council and is co-chair of the Public Law Section Data Practices Committee.
Kathryn Berger is an attorney in the office of general counsel for the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, and a licensed registered nurse. She has been employed by DLI since 1985. She graduated magna cum laude from William Mitchell College of Law. Her expertise at DLI is in the areas of workers’ compensation law, health law, data practices and administrative law. Ms. Berger has extensive experience in all types of rulemaking under the Minnesota Administrative Procedures Act, with a particular focus on rules related to worker’s compensation.
Jean Boos is a research and instructional librarian at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She teaches advanced legal research and also works in the copyright and hybrid program compliance areas for the college. She earned her J.D. from the University of Minnesota and her M.L.I.S. from St. Catherine University. Prior to her employment at Mitchell Hamline Jean was in private practice in Eagan.
Stacie Christensen is a Minnesota licensed attorney and received her J.D. from Hamline School of Law in 2003. She has been employed by the Department of Administration since 2006 and is currently the Director of the Information Policy Analysis Division (IPAD). At IPAD, she supervises division staff, serves as the division’s staff attorney, and provides general technical assistance with information policy and open meetings related questions to the public, government, media, and the Legislature. She has presented at numerous CLEs and other trainings on the topics of data practices and open meetings.
Kari Thoe Crone is a staff attorney for the Minnesota Court of Appeals, where she focuses on civil and administrative law. Before joining the court in 2007, she was a civil litigator for seven years. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School.
Lindsay Davis is the Access to Justice Director at the Minnesota State Bar Association. She has worked in private practice and as a staff attorney at Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, where she handled administrative law matters including federal and state entitlement benefits and state employment licensing and employment disqualifications. She was also an adjunct professor, supervising law students in administrative law matters in the Hamline University School of Law Health Law Clinic and the William Mitchell College of Law Civil Advocacy Clinic.
Kerstin Forsythe Hahn has worked in the field of Administrative Law for over 8 years. She has been the Rulemaking Coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) since 2007 where she manages the agency’s rulemaking projects, provides guidance and training on data practices issues, and serves as the agency’s record retention manager. Mrs. Forsythe Hahn is an active member of the Minnesota Interagency Rules Committee.
Matt Gehring is an attorney and legislative analyst in the nonpartisan Research Department of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Matt’s duties include coordinating the House’s institutional legal services team, and staffing legislative topics related to state government finance and operations, including administrative law. Matt has been with House Research since 2006. He is a JD/MPP graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and completed his undergraduate degree at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Tara Kalar is a prosecutor in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office on the property crime team. Her legal background includes significant experience as an administrative judge at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, as well as roles in the legal offices of the Minnesota Department of Revenue and the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Her expertise focuses on constitutional and administrative law. Ms. Kalar earned her J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law.
Allan Klein was an ALJ for 29 years. He handled cases in all major areas, but focused on utilities, environmental and transportation matters. He is a graduate of Princeton University (with honors) and the University of Minnesota Law School. Since retiring in 2005, he has devoted time to community activities, serving on a variety of Boards and Committees.
Jason Kuenle has been an attorney with the Revisor of Statutes since 2008. He is now an Assistant Deputy Revisor and his duties include managing the production of Revisor publications, supervising the publication indexes, presenting on drafting standards, and drafting in higher education, elections, administrative law, and data practices. He received his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned the Samuel M. Breckenridge Book Award for Excellence in Legal Writing and was selected to the Order of the Barristers.
Ian Lewenstein has extensive rulemaking experience, having worked for the Office of the Revisor of Statutes, the Office of Administrative Hearings, and over a half-dozen state agencies. He is the rulemaking manager for the Department of Corrections and an active member of the Minnesota Interagency Rules Committee, including one of the main editors of the state’s rulemaking manual.
Paul M. Marinac has a B.A. in Government from Saint John’s University and a J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law. He is the Deputy Revisor for Drafting and the former Assistant Deputy Revisor for Rule Drafting. He was also legal counsel for the Legislative Commission To Review Adminstrative Rules from 1983 to 1997.
Pari McGarraugh practices administrative law as a shareholder at Fredrikson. Pari received her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School, her M.P.H. from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and her B.A. from the University of Minnesota.
Mike Norton is an associate in Dorsey & Whitney’s Regulatory Affairs Practice Group. He advises clients for litigation and compliance on federal, state, and local regulatory issues spanning insurance, the environment, trade, data privacy, transportation, telecom, and governance. Before joining the firm, Dr. Norton ran a close election voter protection program for a presidential campaign and worked for the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is also a JAG officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Norton earned his B.S.A., summa cum laude, in 2013 from the University of Arkansas, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in political science respectively in 2015 and 2018 from the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and his J.D., pro bono distinction, in 2021 from Stanford Law School. He is a 2012 Truman Scholar.
Sam Orbovich chairs the Aging and Disability Providers Law group at Fredrikson & Byron, PA. Sam received his J.D. from Capital University and his undergraduate degree from Denison University, both in Ohio. He has practiced administrative law in Minnesota since 1982, representing licensed health care providers certified to participate in the Medicaid and Medicare programs.
Jodi Pope is a legal analyst with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Before joining the Board staff, Ms. Pope worked for the Minnesota Departments of Human Services and Education and the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State. Ms. Pope is a graduate of the College of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota Law School.
Tammy L. Pust has been the Chief Judge at the Office of Administrative Hearings for approximately two years. She came to OAH after 30 years as an attorney serving in both the private and public sectors. She was a partner at Best & Flanagan in Minneapolis, at Jesson & Pust in St. Paul, and finally at Parker Rosen, back in Minneapolis. In between her stints in private practice, Ms. Pust worked in the public sector as an Assistant Attorney General and the Policy Director for Children and Families at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office under Skip Humphrey, as an Assistant Commissioner for the state education agency under Governor Ventura, and as the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer for MDE in the administration of Governor Dayton.
Ms. Pust has a history of active community service. Chief Judge Pust served for two terms on the Roseville City Council. She is currently the President of the North Suburban Community Foundation and the Vice President of the Boards of Directors for PACER, a nonprofit that supports children with special needs and their families, and for Keystone Community Services, which operates the second largest foodshelf in the state.
LauraSue Schlatter is an Administrative Law Judge at the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings. She has been a staff attorney for the Minnesota Department of Revenue as well as the Office of Administrative Hearings, and was an Assistant Attorney General in the Minnesota Attorney General’s office from 1989-1999. Judge Schlatter earned her J.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1988.
David Schultz is a Hamline University Professor of Political Science who teaches across a wide-range of American politics classes including public policy and administration, campaigns and elections, and government ethics. David is also professor in the Hamline and University of Minnesota Schools of Law where he teaches election law. David is the author of 28 books and 100+ articles on various aspects of American politics, election law, and the media and politics, and he is regularly interviewed and quoted in the local, national, and international media on these subjects including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, and National Public Radio. His most recent books are Election Law and Democratic Theory (2014) and American Politics in the Age of Ignorance: Why Lawmakers Choose Belief Over Research 2013). A two-time Fulbright scholar who has taught extensively in Europe, Professor Schultz is the 2013 Leslie A. Whittington national award winner for excellence in public affairs teaching.
Meghan Scully is a staff attorney at Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services. She represents clients in a wide range of cases relating to entitlement programs, licensing, and collateral consequences of criminal convictions. Prior to law school, she worked as a legislative aide in the United States Senate and Minnesota Senate.
Mark Shepard is a Legislative Analyst in the Minnesota House of Representatives Research Department, where he has worked since 1978. Mark’s primary responsibilities are in the areas of state government finance and state government operations, including administrative law. Mark is a 1974 graduate of Carleton College and a 1978 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School.
Stephen Swanson is presently a contract administrative law judge with the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings, having served as an ALJ in a full-time capacity from October 1988 to May 1989. He also acts as a volunteer arbitrator for the Conflict Resolution Center. From July 1989 to January 2007, he served as a district court judge in the Fourth Judicial District, and from January 2009 to April 2014, as a senior judge of district court by appointment of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He has served as an international judge on the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (November 2004 to August 2005) and as a judicial consultant for United States Agency for International Development-sponsored rule of law programs in Afghanistan (February 2007 to December 2008), Lebanon (July 2010 to December 2010), and Kosovo (May 2011 to November 2012). From September 1971 to September 1988, he was an attorney in various capacities for Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance, Inc., and from September 1969 to June 1971, served as a VISTA volunteer in New York City. Mr. Swanson received his J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1969 and an LL.M. from the New York University School of Law in 1971.
Suzanne Todnem is an administrative law judge at the Office of Administrative Hearings. Prior to becoming an administrative law judge, she has worked at the Department of Labor and Industry, the Department of Human Services, and the First Judicial District.
Vanessa Vogl has been the Rulemaking Attorney at the Minnesota Department of Human Services since 2016. Before that, she was a Staff Attorney in the Health Care Administration at DHS, the Benefits Counseling Coordinator at the Minnesota AIDS Project, and a Judicial Law Clerk at the Minnesota Court of Appeals. She received her law degree from Hamline University School of Law in 2009.
Patricia Winget is an in-house attorney with the Minnesota Department of Health, where she has worked since 1999. At present, among other things, she serves as the Commissioner’s delegated decision maker for contested cases and fair hearings and also as the Department’s rulemaking coordinator. She is also is the editor of the Minnesota Rulemaking Manual, the state agencies’ guide to adopting rules under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 14, which she has edited since 2007. She received both her B.A. and J.D. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has practiced primarily in health law, starting as a lobbyist, then in private practice in Red Wing, and at the Office of the Attorney General.