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At Florida State University (FSU), Tony Sanchez participated in Air Force ROTC and plans to one day serve in the JAG Corps. While an FSU student, he had internships at the State Legislature and in the Office of the Public Defender, both excellent preparation to pursue a career in the law. He is also a first-generation student in his family.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has appointed Professor Alexandra Klass to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Climate Change.

The Advisory Council, established by the Climate Change Executive Order 19-37, will work together with the governor’s Climate Change Subcabinet to identify innovative policies and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase climate resiliency.

Jennifer L. Rivers, 1L, has an M.S. in Molecular Microbiology and has worked as a molecular and microbiology scientist. Just prior to enrolling at Minnesota Law, she served as an antimicrobial resistance fellow for the Association of Public Health Laboratories-CDC (one of only 12 selected nationally).

Prior to enrolling at Minnesota Law, Emma S. Peterson, 1L, tutored youth in two countries (Peru and Estonia) and also volunteered as a tutor in New Orleans during her freshman year of college at Tulane. She has an M.A. in English and was a recipient of a prestigious Fulbright Award.

Russell A. Anderson ’68, who served on the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1998 to 2008, the last two years as chief justice, died Tuesday at his home, surrounded by his family. He was 78, and had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, in 2017.

Professor Joan S. Howland, the Roger F. Noreen Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Information Technology, has been elected  to a second three-year term as a delegate-at-large to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates, the policy-making body of the organization.

Rob Grimsley played as a safety on the North Dakota State University (NDSU) football team for four years, during which the Division 1 powerhouse amassed an amazing 55-4 record. He helped NDSU win three FCS national championships in the 2015, 2017, and 2018 seasons, and was named team captain. Grimsley is a first-gen student in his family and would like one day to be a prosecutor.

Brett Ludwig ’94 today was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Ludwig has served as a judge the U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin since 2017.

Ludwig, 51, will take over the seat long held by Rudolph Randa, who died in 2016. 

Today we launch our "Meet the Class of 2023" series with Elisabeth Bernabe, 1L, who spent the last two years as a paralegal in the international trade & investment group of the Washington, D.C. office of Hogan Lovells, one of the world’s largest law firms. As an undergraduate at Yale University, she interned for a summer at a start-up in Belgium, and was a member of the women’s golf team. 

Minnesota Law this week welcomes 213 students from 121 undergraduate institutions in 34 states and seven countries to its first-year J.D. class. The Class of 2023 is setting new records for gender and racial diversity at Minnesota Law.  In addition to women making up a majority of incoming students for just the fourth time in the school’s history, the first-year class is the most racially diverse to enter the Law School in more than 15 years.