As Minnesota families How I battled for Minnesota in 2023 and how I want to continue in…
I want to take a moment to consider everything that we accomplished as a team in 2023 and look forward to the next year as families around Minnesota celebrate the new year.
We collaborated across party lines and achieved progress on a number of topics affecting our state in spite of a divided Congress. I had the opportunity to personally see that development last year during my travels to each of Minnesota’s 87 counties. In 2024, I want to continue building on that momentum.
Minnesota is our nation’s real economic centre. For this reason, I battled to get federal financing for initiatives like the Moorhead 11th Street subway project and the recently finished new Highway 14 in Southern Minnesota.
We still have work to do, but these investments will keep our state competitive for many years to come. My main goal is to ensure that Minnesota receives an equitable portion of financing from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This will enable us to go forward with planned infrastructure projects, such as the replacement of the Blatnik Bridge in the north and the expansion of Highway 212 in Carver County.
It would be impossible to discuss infrastructure without including broadband. 136,000 households and small businesses in Minnesota do not currently have access to high-speed internet. For this reason, I spearheaded the legislation to provide internet service to every zip code. To make this a reality, Minnesota was awarded a groundbreaking $650 million federal grant in 2023.
I’m also committed to helping families save money. Congress finally enacted my legislation, which ended the sweetheart arrangement that allowed Big Pharma to fleece seniors by driving up prescription medicine costs, after years of struggle. For 10 of the most popular and costly medications on the market, pricing negotiations have already started.
By 2025, seniors using Fiasp and NovoLog insulin medicines, as well as Eliquis, Xarelto, Jardiance, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, and Stelara, may pay less for these life-saving medications. Just these 10 medications cost a combined $3.4 billion to seniors last year; but, due to drug price negotiations, US taxpayers will save an estimated $281 billion over the next ten years.
Enabling Medicare to lower prescription costs would significantly impact our seniors’ standard of life, and I want further savings to start accruing as soon as feasible. I’m trying to pass my new law in order to treble the amount of medications that are up for price negotiations each year because I believe that no American should have to pick between stocking their refrigerator or their prescriptions.
Peter Michaud of Minneapolis is now directing Ballard Spahr nationally.
Ballard Spahr
Ballard Spahr, a nationwide law company with 600 lawyers and 15 locations, including one in Minneapolis where he obtained his legal wings, has a new chairman in Peter Michaud.
Peter Michaud has been travelling this past year in preparation for his upcoming role as chairman of Ballard Spahr, a business with 600 solicitors.
He anticipates Ballard Spahr becoming even larger and using technology more going ahead, having already held the post and been acquainted with the 15 locations located in cities ranging from Minneapolis and Philadelphia to Atlanta and Los Angeles.
One thing, however. The native Minnesotan has no plans to leave, but he will divide his time between his home state and other places, particularly the company’s Philadelphia headquarters.
He said, “I adore Minneapolis.”
The 139-year-old company with 1,200 workers has its first boss outside of the Philadelphia headquarters after graduating from Hamline University and the University of Minnesota Law School.
Growing up on St. Paul’s east side, Michaud began his legal career at Minneapolis’s Lindquist & Vennum, where he established a nationwide practice specialising in corporate finance, mergers, private equity, and other business-related matters.
In 2018, Ballard Spahr bought the Lindquist business, which employed 170 attorneys. Michaud took over as chairman of Ballard’s Business and Transactions Department the following year.
Michaud takes over as chairman from Mark Stewart, who held the position for twelve years.
Michaud, 55, said, “I’m excited about this position.” “Growing is one of my objectives. Finding more skilled lawyers to practise in a range of areas that I think our customers need now or in the future is my main goal.”
In an interview last week, he expressed special interest in expanding the firm’s well-established real estate, finance, and litigation, as well as mergers and acquisitions, divisions. He said that this also applies to the Minneapolis office.
Additionally, Michaud is looking for a smaller legal practice that may be a suitable merger partner. He would want to grow his clientele and maybe create an office in a part of the nation where Ballard does not yet have any.
“We’re really open to all kinds of ideas, but we’re looking at the Pacific Northwest, we’re looking at Florida, Texas, Chicago,” he said. “These are some areas that are on our radar.”
April Hamlin, a law partner at Ballard Spahr, said that Michaud would have difficulties persuading smaller legal firms that they won’t just be swallowed up and forgotten at a large national company. She continued by saying that Michaud, who joined the company from the much smaller Lindquist & Vennum and worked his way up to head Ballard, could be the ideal candidate to spearhead that effort.
Furthermore, Michaud is “a total people person.” Having worked with Michaud for 25 years, Hamlin described him as someone who “really just inspires people to be at their best and gives them the comfort that he’s got their back.”
In addition to his interpersonal abilities, Michaud intends to employ technology to support Ballard’s future.
According to him, the law company may become more effective at organising and handling thousands of legal papers by using artificial intelligence software solutions. A.I. will be present at Ballard, while all the specifics are still pending.
Fans of that progressive thought exist.
Under Michaud, the departing chairman and litigator Stewart (who will stay on as a partner at Ballard) expressed importance that the legal company “moves forward as an innovator in the industry.”
Stewart remarked, “Peter is an extraordinary talent, a friend, and someone who has been a key part of the leadership of the firm over the past several years.” He also expressed excitement about Michaud’s potential to further expand on Ballard’s innovative and inclusive culture.
Ballard Spahr ranks 87th among US law firms, bringing in around $500 million a year and employing 600 lawyers.
The legal practice takes great pleasure in its pro bono services. Numerous lawyers there volunteer in the fields of social justice, immigration, civil rights, and addressing housing inequalities. Last year, Ballard Spahr offered 54,000 hours of pro bono legal services.
“It’s important,” Michaud said, expressing pride in his company’s unusual practice of paying its lawyers for the billable hours they would otherwise need to carry out this kind of job.
We have replied and received more requests for free legal assistance in the last several years. Michaud doesn’t see this pattern ending.
Ballard Spahr joined Dorsey & Whitney, Fish & Richardson, Fredrikson & Byron, and other Minnesota law firms in 2020, after George Floyd’s death and public disturbance, to defend victims of police brutality and arrests that were believed to be motivated by race.
2020 saw the introduction of a Racial Justice and Equality Initiative by Ballard Spahr’s Philadelphia and Minneapolis offices. In an attempt to ensure that polling places in underprivileged areas had enough personnel to remain open during the Covid-19 outbreak, several solicitors volunteered to serve as election workers.
Michaud said that he would continue to pursue his own pro bono work even after taking on the role of chairman. He is also helping a Guatemalan lady who is currently applying for asylum in the US after experiencing physical and sexual assault.
According to him, each lawyer choose their own voluntary topic areas. “I believe that demonstrates our commitment to it. We’re telling our lawyers that you should devote your time to this, and we will help you do so.”
The managing partner of Ballard Spahr’s Minneapolis branch, Karla Vehrs, said that Michaud’s leadership would be advantageous to the national company in the next years.
“He approaches every interaction and relationship with authenticity, which was undoubtedly key to our firm deciding to place our trust in Peter,” Vehrs said. “Just as important, Peter has outstanding judgement and a clear vision of the future of Ballard Spahr.”
Leave a Reply