Fredrikson & Byron shareholder James L. Baillie was selected to receive the Volunteer Lawyers Network’s 2016 John D. Levine Distinguished Service Award. The award is presented each year to a volunteer who has provided years of service exemplifying the spirit of pro bono legal services and access to justice for those in poverty. He has served VLN continuously since 1969 as a volunteer, board member, board chair, or board chair of the VLN Benefactor’s Board. Baillie will receive the award on September 15, 2016.
Baillie is a nationally recognized bankruptcy lawyer with over 49 years of experience, representing financially stressed businesses or their creditors bringing to bear his experience in bankruptcy and workouts, debtor-creditor law, business transactions and litigation to help those clients. He has counseled and represented thousands of businesses in challenging financial circumstances in over 49 years of practice and is adept at developing creative solutions to difficult problems. He was lead attorney for the Turnaround Management Association’s National Transaction of the Year in 2009 and for the TMA Upper Midwest Chapter’s Transactions of the Year in 2006 and in 2010. Nominated by his peers, he became a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy in 1997.
Baillie recently chaired the committee that drafted Minnesota’s comprehensive new statute covering receiverships and assignments for the benefit of creditors that became effective August 1, 2012. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 1989 and selected by his peers as a Best Lawyers’ “Lawyer of the Year” in Minneapolis Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law. He has also been included in all listings of Minnesota Super Lawyers and is designated a “Top 100 Attorney” among all Minnesota lawyers.
Baillie is very active in pro bono legal activities and bar leadership, and has received national honors for his work, including the first national pro bono award given by the American Bar Association (in 1984). He has served as president of the 7,500-member Hennepin County Bar Association and as president of the 15,000-member Minnesota State Bar Association. He is an active member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Turnaround Management Association, among others. He is currently on the editorial board of The Business Lawyer, the law review of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association.
Fredrikson & Byron is a 275-attorney law firm based in Minneapolis, with offices in Bismarck, Des Moines, Fargo, Monterrey, Mexico, and Shanghai, China. Fredrikson & Byron has a reputation as the firm “where law and business meet”. Our attorneys bring business acumen and entrepreneurial thinking to work with clients, and operate as business advisors and strategic partners, as well as legal counselors. More information about the firm is available at www.fredlaw.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and on Twitter @FredriksonLaw.