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View 2024 MACA Legislative Update Agenda
Criminal Law Update
Matthew Hartung
Matthew Hartung is an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Minneapolis. Matthew works in the criminal division as a prosecutor. Matthew has ten years of experience as a trial attorney and has litigated a variety of cases and issues. Matthew is a graduate from Marquette University Law School.
De-Escalation Through Language and Law
Aimee Gourlay
Aimee Gourlay, JD is the Collaboration Services Manager for the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust. Her specialties include understanding systemic roots of conflict and supporting people to communicate across worldviews. She is well known for facilitating processes that involve high emotions and multiple stakeholder groups. Her work for the League includes conflict assessments, consulting, facilitation, and mediation to help cities manage risk. She is also a Senior Fellow at the nationally ranked Dispute Resolution Institute at Mitchell Hamline Law School, teaching Mediation and Organizational Conflict Management Systems Design.
Jason Kuboushek
Jason is a Partner at Iverson Reuvers and has been with the firm since its inception. His practice involves helping clients throughout Minnesota. This includes cities, counties, townships, individuals, and businesses. He has handled numerous trials and appeals involving individual owners, contractors, subcontractors, and design professionals.
Jason enjoys working with companies and entrepreneurs with a broad range of business-related services. Specifically, he advises clients on business law, start-up assistance relating to the formation of an entity, the protection of a trademark or license agreement and assist with buying or selling a business and estate planning.
Prior to law school, Jason worked as an environmental consultant and in the construction industry. This has provided him the knowledge to provide comprehensive assistance in these industries. Jason is also a frequent lecturer on land use and environmental law topics (including the intricacies of environmental review) and is involved in many related organizations. At the present time, he is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, Minnesota Defense Lawyers Association, Governmental Liability Committee, and the Defense Research Institute. He also volunteers for Junior Achievement and coaches youth basketball, baseball, and softball. At the end of the day, he enjoys relaxing with his wife and four children.
Melissa Manderschied
Melissa Manderschied has been the city attorney for Bloomington since 2016. Prior to serving Bloomington, she was a shareholder at Kennedy & Graven. Melissa worked for the Metropolitan Council and was an AmeriCorps VISTA before attending law school.
Pamela Whitmore
Pam has over twenty years of experience in the areas of local government law, municipal litigation and conflict management services. She currently serves as city attorney for the City of Mankato, City of Marshall, City of Olivia, City of Wells, and City of West St. Paul.
Civil Law Update
Brooke Bordson
Brooke Bordson is an Intergovernmental Relations Representative with the League of Minnesota Cities where she advocates on behalf of member cities before the state legislature and administrative agencies on issues related to civil law, data practices, and procurement. Before joining the League of Minnesota Cities, Brooke worked in government relations for the Metropolitan Council on issues related to transit, wastewater systems, and regional planning. Brooke also worked as a Committee Administrator at the Minnesota House of Representatives. Her undergraduate degree is from the College of St. Scholastica, and she earned her J.D. from Hamline University School of Law.
The Ethics and Biases of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models
Sybil Dunlop
Sybil Dunlop is a litigation partner at the law firm of Greene Espel PLLP. Her practice affords her substantial first-chair trial and arbitration experience, representing clients in both the private and public sector. She represents Fortune 100 companies, startups, and public sector entities, including cities accused of Monell liability and police officers accused of exercising excessive force. Sources share that “she is brilliant, responsive and seeks to understand business objectives.” (Chambers and Partners, 2022). And Minnesota Lawyer has twice recognized her as Attorney of the Year. Bringing her skills to bear, Sybil successfully leads teams in litigations around the country.
In addition to her active litigation practice, Sybil is a national thought leader on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She co-founded Greene Espel’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion legal practice, which helps workplaces design and implement strategies and programs to meet their goals. As part of this practice, Sybil offers award-winning diversity trainings which receive rave reviews from audiences around the country. In recognition of her efforts, Minnesota Lawyer selected Sybil as one of its Diversity & Inclusion Honorees, and the Hennepin County Bar Association awarded her its Excellence Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion.
Prior to joining Greene Espel, Sybil clerked for the Honorable James M. Rosenbaum, United States Judge for the District of Minnesota, and attended Vanderbilt University Law School where she graduated order of the coif.
Farah Famouri
Farah works with Greene Espel and has deep experience and extensive knowledge of our state court system, having clerked for four judges on the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Farah calls upon her clerkship experience as well as her outstanding research and analytic skills to help defend client interests and further client goals in all phases of litigation.
Farah graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she received the Mary Kelly Quakenbush Memorial Award for the Most Outstanding Student Note for her writing on free speech in the U.S. and U.K. During law school, Farah worked as an extern for the Center for the Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a clinical intern for the Wisconsin State Public Defender, and as a clinical research assistant for the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
Judicial Update
Paul Merwin
Paul Merwin has been a defense attorney at the League of Minnesota Cities since 2005, with an emphasis on land use law. He has recently taken over management of the League’s Minnesota Amicus Program. He previously served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General. From 2005-2013, he taught Environmental Law as an adjunct professor of law at Hamline School of Law. Paul is a 1998 graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Law.
Just Deeds Training and Workshop
Corrine Heine
Corrine Heine is the city attorney for Minnetonka. The city has been a member of Just Deeds since 2021, and the city staff handles and processes all Just Deeds requests made by city property owners. In addition, Corrine is one of several people who train the volunteer attorneys who process requests for other Just Deeds member cities.