International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that Paula Nunes Dias Kanne, a lawyer in the Firm’s Corporate Group in Minneapolis, has been named Honorary Consul for Brazil in the State of Minnesota by the Brazilian General Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In this role, she will report and support the work of the Brazilian Consulate in Chicago.

Ms. Kanne’s practice focuses on representing public and private companies in mergers and acquisitions, financing transactions and general corporate matters. Before joining Dorsey in 2016, she was a paralegal for more than three years for U.S. Bank. Before joining U.S. Bank, she was a litigation attorney for Banco do Brasil in Brazil, where she worked for six years and handled a portfolio of hundreds of labor and employment cases. Simultaneously, she started and managed her own legal practice in Brasilia dealing with a variety of commercial and civil matters. Her first legal experience was as a Clerk at the State of Goias Attorney General’s Office also in Brazil.

Ms. Kanne has a J.D. degree from William Mitchell College of Law (now Mitchell Hamline School of Law), where she was awarded the 2014 Kirwin Professionalism Prize, a Brazilian J.D. Law degree from Centro de Ensino Superior Unificado de Brasilia and an M.B.A. in Tax Law from Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV). She was recognized in 2016 as an MSBA North Star Lawyer for her extensive pro bono work. She is a director of the Brazil-Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and has served as an American Heart Association Ambassador.

A native of Brazil, Ms. Kanne is fluent in Portuguese and English.

“Dorsey prides itself on serving clients all around the world,” noted Ken Cutler, Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney. “We are proud of Paula’s appointment as Honorary Consul for Brazil and know that she will help bring even closer ties between Brazil and the State of Minnesota.”

“I am deeply honored to be able to serve Brazil as Honorary Consul,” added Ms. Kanne, “and to help cement the full range of relationships Brazil and Brazilians have with Minnesota and Minnesotans.”