Chuck is a trial lawyer and appellate specialist. In 2010, Chuck was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an honor bestowed on fewer than 1% of all litigators nationwide. He has won a wide variety of commercial cases involving financial institutions, consumer credit, oil and gas matters, commercial sales, and employment. Chuck has tried many cases to verdict and won, and has been a frequent speaker at trial-practice seminars. Chuck has first-chaired trials that led to:

• A complete defense verdict for one of the nation's largest refining companies in a $1 billion whistleblower lawsuit that was named one of the defense verdicts of the year by The National Law Journal
• A jury verdict in favor of a bank that sued a former loan officer for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty
• A jury verdict in favor of a construction company against one of the largest retailers in the nation
• A jury verdict in favor of a refining company suing a machinery contractor for business-interruption damages
• Post-arbitration settlement in a dispute between two national banks
• A jury verdict in favor of a window manufacturer on a product-warranty claim against a supplier

Chuck has also tried and won cases involving stock purchases, trade-secret claims, commercial contracts, and various business torts.

Chuck's clients have won a great many cases before they even got to trial. These include a potential nationwide class-action lawsuit against one of the nation's largest banks arising out of alleged identity theft involving some 400,000 customers (on which Chuck obtained summary judgment for the bank), another potential class-action lawsuit against a bank arising out of NSF check fees (which was dismissed on the merits), a potential class action arising out of credit-card-processing services (which ended with decertification of the class), lender-liability suits against banks and their employees (which ended in summary-judgment rulings in favor of the clients), and numerous other commercial cases.

Chuck is also one of the leading appellate specialists in the area. He sits on the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure and is the immediate past chair of the Appellate Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association. Examples of Chuck's appellate work are:

• Boyd v. Tornier, Inc., 656 F.3d 487 (7th Cir. 2011)—Reversing verdict against client in distributor's breach-of-contract lawsuit
• Karnitz v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 572 F.3d 572 (8th Cir. 2009) - Reversing judgment against client in case challenging validity of mortgage
• Ritter, Laber and Associates, Inc. v. Koch Oil Co., 740 N.W.2d 67 (N.D. 2007) - Affirming judgment in client's favor on contract reformation and other issues in complex class action case
• Nebraska Beef, Ltd. v. Wells Fargo Business Credit, Inc., 470 F.3d 1249 (8th Cir. 2006) - Affirming summary judgment in favor of national bank on lender-liability-type claims
• Crosstown Holding Co. v. Marquette Bank, N.A., 2005 WL 3372709 (Minn. App. 2005) - Affirming summary judgment in favor of national bank in multi-million-dollar dispute over bid process for divestiture of bank branches
• Chadwell v. Koch Refining Company, L.P., 251 F.3d 727 (8th Cir. 2001) - Affirming jury's verdict in favor of client in whistleblower case where plaintiff claimed nearly $1 billion in compensatory and punitive damages
• The H Window Company v. Cascade Wood Products, Inc., 596 N.W.2d 271 (Minn. App. 1999) - Reinstatement of jury verdict for client in UCC warranty case
• DLH, Inc. v. Russ, 566 N.W.2d 60 (Minn. 1997) - Dispute over control of 1.54 million shares of corporate stock
• Molenaar v. United Cattle Co., 553 N.W.2d 424 (Minn. App. 1996) - Cattle conversion claim involving punitive damages
• Baker v. Chaplin, 517 N.W.2d 911 (Minn. 1994) - Scope of qualified immunity for police officers protecting President George Bush

Honors

• The Best Lawyers in America — Commercial Litigation, 2006-13; Appellate Practice, Environmental Litigation, Bet-the-Company Litigation and Securities Litigation, 2013 
• Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business — Litigation: General Commercial, 2004–12
• Super Lawyers — Business Litigation, 2007–12 
• American College of Trial Lawyers — Fellow
• Benchmark: Litigation — Local Litigation Star, 2008, 2013 

Professional Associations

Clerkships

Presentations

• Recent Developments in the Law Regarding Robo-Signing
  Iowa CLE, 2011
• They Have No Class: Strategies for Dealing with Class Action Litigation
  Complex Litigation Seminar, Minneapolis, 2010
• The Eighth Circuit Year in Review
  Federal Bar Association, 2009
• Ten Things the Court Wishes Lawyers Knew
  Moderator, Third Annual Appellate Practice Institute, Minnesota CLE, 2009
• Winning Your First Civil Jury Trial
  Minnesota CLE, Various times, 1998-2009
• Winning Your Next Jury Trial
  Minnesota CLE, Various times, 1998-2009

Published Articles