Bill Wernz is an Of Counsel member of the Trial Department at Dorsey & Whitney LLP. He was Ethics Partner and a member of the Trial Department at Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Minneapolis 1992-2009. He practices in the areas of attorney ethics, malpractice and fiduciary law. He is the author of Minnesota Legal Ethics (2011), an online treatise, hosted by the Minnesota State Bar Association. From 1985 to 1992 Mr. Wernz was the Director of the Minnesota Lawyers Board. In 1998-99 he was the president of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, a nationwide group of over 200 lawyers. Mr. Wernz received the Minnesota Lawyer 2009 Outstanding Service to the Profession Award. In 1991 Mr. Wernz received the Minnesota State Bar Association Award of Excellence. In 2003 Mr. Wernz received the Minnesota State Bar Association President’s Award, for his work as chair of the Task Force that proposed changes in the Rules of Professional Conduct. In 2005 Mr. Wernz received the Hennepin County Bar Association Attorney Professionalism Award. Mr. Wernz has been an adjunct professor, teaching legal ethics, at the University of Minnesota and William Mitchell College of Law. Mr. Wernz is a summa cum laude graduate (1977) of the University of Notre Dame law school and has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa.
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Of Counsel, Trial practice group. Practice is focused on legal ethics and related areas, such as expert opinions, disqualification motions, legal malpractice cases, and representation of bar applicants and judges, 1992-2009.
Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility
Director, 1985-1992; Assistant Director, 1981-1985
Minnesota Client Security Board
Director, 1987-1992
Broeker, Hartfeldt, Hedges & Grant
Associate Attorney, 1977-1981