Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Pattee.
Steven, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up on a farm outside a small town in Iowa, but for reasons I don’t remember wanted to be a lawyer from an early age. I went to the University of Iowa and received a degree in political science then went on to law school, also at the University of Iowa. I graduated in 1996. The day after graduation, I loaded a Uhaul and moved to Minnesota to study for the bar exam and look for a job. I started as a litigation associate in an insurance defense firm of 29 lawyers. I spent a year there, then went to a new firm where there were three lawyers and I was given a lot of responsibility very quickly to try cases and argue appeals. I stayed there until 2005 when I opened my own firm, a solo practice, that I maintained until late 2016 when I decided to join a firm that served as national counsel for a variety of retail and hospitality clients. In 2024 I joined Tewksbury & Kerfeld, eventually taking over the ownership of the firm which has since been renamed Pattee, Tewksbury & Kerfeld.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It hasn’t always been smooth. Just finding a job was tough because the job market for new lawyers was tight in the mid 1990s. In law school I made a list of approximately 325 law firms that did work that I wanted to do. I sent resumes and cover letters to the entire list every semester of law school. My persistence eventually opened doors that led to my first two legal jobs.
Starting my own law firm also presented challenges from generating business, to learning to manage people, to understanding the back office procedures.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Pattee Tewksbury & Kerfeld?
We are a small firm located in downtown Minneapolis. We handle both insurance defense and plaintiff’s cases. The defense cases include auto, trucking, construction and product liability claims. The plaintiff’s personal injury clams include auto and motorcycle accidents, trucking accidents, premises liability, dram shop, dog bite and wrongful death cases. We are a small firm, but we routinely handle large, complex injury claims.
We work hard to make complicated cases simple for our clients, and we prepare each case as if it’s going to trial. We aren’t afraid to try cases for our clients who want their day in court. Above all, we want to be trusted advisors for our clients – someone they can rely on to see the value of the case, but also how this case may affect other areas of their business or life.
How do you think about luck?
I tend to believe that luck is created by hard work or lack thereof. Work and preparation put you in position to succeed. Sometimes that feels like luck.
I have had opportunities to take on large amounts of responsibility early in my career that led to my development as a lawyer through gaining fairly extensive trial and appellate experience within just a few years of graduating from law school.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ptk-law.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tewksbury-kerfeld/?viewAsMember=true
