Susan M. Holden - Press
Susan Holden was honored by Minnesota Lawyer for Outstanding Service to the state's legal profession. As recipient of the "Outstanding Service to the Profession" award, Susan was recognized for her years of work on behalf of the state bar, the courts, disaster victims, as well as her career as a litigator.
Susan Holden honored by Minnesota Lawyer for Outstanding Service
The “war room” is a conference room at Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum. Susan Holden is the general — the head of a special master panel appointed to oversee the distribution of $37 million in compensation to survivors of Aug. 1, 2007, the day the I-35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River. It’s been daunting task for Holden, joined with Steven Kirsch and Michael Tewsksbury, who made the awards after reviewing and holding hearings on 179 claims. “The best part about working on this panel was working with Mike and Steve,” Holden remarks.
It’s been an emotional journey for the three since they were appointed last May. “It’s been very intense to listen to the stories,” Holden says. Holden, Kirsch and Tewksbury gave a thorough review to the difficult, even tragic stories of the survivors, even those who requested a paper hearing. Every person who wanted to meet with a panel member, or the whole panel, did. It was a job that consumed the three from May 29, 2008 when they were appointed, to this month, when the awards were due.
Holden brought to the job her ability to organize and galvanize the troops, just as she did in 2005 when, just months into her term as president of the Minnesota State Bar Association, she was responsible for a comprehensive relief effort for lawyers along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Minnesota lawyers responded to the disaster with $425,000 in cash along with five semi-truck loads of office furniture and supplies. “Minnesota did more than any other state in the country. The bar gave people the outlet to help. Everybody knew what the need was. I just went [to them] and asked,” Holden says.
But Patrick Kelly, who was president-elect of the MSBA at that time, said that Holden is revered by Gulf Coast lawyers. He remembers an ABA dinner hosted by the delegation from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. A hush fell over the room when Holden walked in, he said. Kelly says that one of the Louisiana lawyers said, “Minnesota, we’ll never forget you.”
Holden got interested in bar activities at the beginning of her legal career partly to network among lawyers outside her immediate practice area. But what started as a way to enhance professional relationships became much more, she says. She became president of the Hennepin County Bar Association — which is the ninth largest bar association in the country and is bigger than many state bars — in 1999.
When she assumed the gavel of the MSBA in 2005, Holden appointed a diversity task force that expanded to other areas such as race the work that the MSBA Women in the Legal Profession Committee had done on gender equity. “She gave us our individual marching orders on what we could do to support diversity and promote women in the profession,” Kelly says.
The task force was followed by an implementation task force that Holden chaired along with attorney Dani Deering. The result was a Diversity Best Practices Guide that gives law firms and companies common-sense advice on attracting and maintaining any lawyers, including lawyers of a diverse population. In the area of diversity in the legal profession, including the status of women, “there’s still a lot of work to be done. It’s a national issue,” Holden says.
