As a judge, Laurie regularly conducted settlement conferences in civil cases, assisting parties in resolving their matters short of trial. Laurie’s experience enables her to provide mediation and arbitration services in many types of civil litigation matters, including commercial litigation, shareholder disputes, employment litigation, products liability litigation, mass tort litigation, and all types of malpractice litigation.

Laurie was assigned to the Hennepin County District Court’s Civil Division for the last 13 years of her judicial career, including serving four years as the Presiding Judge of the Civil Division. She presided over more than 150 civil trials, including jury trials and court trials. Her civil trials included significant matters that proceeded in conjunction with associated federal multi-district litigation, as well as public interest/impact litigation brought by the Minnesota Attorney General.

Prior to her 2008 appointment to the bench, Laurie was a shareholder at Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., where she practiced since moving to the Twin Cities in 1989. She practiced from 1986-1989 at Dunlap, Keith, Finseth, Berndt & Sandberg (n/k/a Dunlap Seeger) in Rochester, Minnesota, and from 1983-1986 at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco, California. From 1981-1983, she clerked for Judges Myron Bright and Richard Arnold on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Laurie received her J.D. from the Yale Law School in 1981, and graduated with an A.B. in Human Biology from Stanford University in 1978. She has been active in legal education, and she has taught CJE and CLE courses on a variety of topics, such as judicial decision-making, civil case management, jurors and social media, the impact of AI on litigation from the judicial perspective. She served as chair of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure for several years.

While in private practice, Laurie volunteered for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and the Children’s Law Center. Laurie was one of the founding board members of the Housing Preservation Project (n/k/a the Housing Justice Center) and served as its board chair before her appointment to the bench. Laurie also served for several years on the board of the Volunteer Lawyers Network. Outside of the law, Laurie loves reading, classical music, and following local sports teams, especially the Twins and the Lynx.