Former actress now drawn to appeal of the legal stage
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Attorney Spotlight
Former actress now drawn to appeal of the legal stage
By Brian Cox
When Melinda Bialzik was feeling the mounting pressure of doing well on her first end-of-semester exams at Harvard Law, she had an epiphany: She shouldn’t think her entire future was riding on how well she did.
“I decided I would just do the best I could and enjoy the ride,” says the Milwaukee attorney. “I realized that if I didn’t succeed in this very narrow way, there were a million different ways that I could have a successful life and career. There isn’t a singular path. Just because this is what was in my mind and looks good on paper, doesn’t mean this is the only path for me. That’s a hard thing to listen to and accept sometime.”
Her new perspective worked. The pressure lifted and she went on to earn her law degree from one of the best law schools in the country.
The irony is that when she was younger, she always swore she wouldn’t be a lawyer. She saw how hard her father worked as an attorney in business litigation and understood well how stressful the work could be. Instead, she felt drawn to the stage and had early aims of being an actress.
But in her junior year at Lawrence University, where among other roles she played Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House,” she had second thoughts about the lifestyle that often comes with being an actor after watching some of her friends live it. She wasn’t interested in moving to New York and she didn’t find the vagabond nature of touring companies attractive. She made the decision to view performing as a hobby rather than a vocation.
A native of Wisconsin, attorney Melinda Bialzik has enjoyed downhill skiing since she was young.
“An acting career is not just the moment on stage, it’s the life that comes with it,” she says. “It was not that hard of a decision.”
It was then she turned her attention to law. When she mentioned to her mother what she was thinking, her mother didn’t want to get her father’s hopes up and said, “Let’s not tell your dad until you’re sure.”
When she had made up her mind for certain and did well on the LSAT, it was her father who suggested she apply to Harvard.
Born and raised in a suburb of Milwaukee, Bialzik spent her youth riding horses and downhill skiing. She was on the swim team in high school and was, in fact, the sole member of the school’s dive team for two years. She played the cello in orchestra and the tuba and sousaphone in marching band.
At Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., Bialzik studied voice and majored in anthropology, which she says her legal colleagues now sometimes find humorous.
“But I think it’s a perfect major for law because anthropology teaches you to try to see things from different perspectives and to understand why people do what they do,” she says.
At Harvard, she at first felt a little intimidated by her classmates and what they seemed to have already accomplished, but she adjusted quickly. Her first summer, she accepted an internship at Foley & Lardner back home in Milwaukee. Her second summer she interned at Jones Day in Cleveland.
After graduating, Bialzik returned to Milwaukee for what she thought would be only a year. Her long-term plans were to move to the West Coast with a fiancé she had met in Boston. When the relationship didn’t work out, Bialzik realized she was happy in Milwaukee and stayed.
She joined Foley & Lardner, where she had previously interned, and had the opportunity as a young associate to argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
Though she doesn’t enjoy conflict in her personal life, she finds litigation intellectually exhilarating, perhaps tapping a little into the natural performer in her.
“As a litigator, I get to see a lot of different industries and develop enough expertise that I can challenge the issues and apply the law,” she says. “I really enjoy it.”
Melinda Bialzik and her son, Connor, hike near Portland, Oregon.
Her practice focuses on trial and appellate representation of businesses and business leaders faced with critical litigation challenges. She has successfully litigated trial and appellate cases in federal courts, in Wisconsin state courts, and also courts in other states under pro hac vice admission, for the duration of the legal proceeding.
Attorney Melinda Bialzik has represented railroads in a number of litigation actions.
After several years at Foley & Lardner, Bialzik was ready for a change from Big Law and at her father’s suggestion she joined the smaller firm where he worked.
He proved to be a good mentor and the father and daughter worked well together.
“He taught me a lot and was very patient,” says Bialzik.
In fact, her very first jury trial was an insurance subrogation case she was handling by herself, and her father went to trial with her.
She worked with another partner in the firm who had several railroad companies for clients. Bialzik loved it and it remains an active part of her practice today.
“There’s nothing I like better than putting on a pair of steel toed boots, my hardhat, and my protective gear and tromping around a railyard,” she says with a huge smile. “I have all my own of that stuff in a bag that I can just pick up and go.”
She finds the work different and unique and has represented railroads in a number of litigation actions involving the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA), crossing accidents, and in related federal preemption litigation.
“It’s intellectually fun because it is something you get up to speed on and become an expert in,” she says. “It is its own unique field of law.”
After 10 years working with her father at the small firm, Bialzik felt there wasn’t enough room for growth and began looking for other opportunities. She and her husband, Pete, had just had their first child, Connor, making it a year of both personal and professional change. When she was approached by Kohner, Mann & Kailas, S.C., in 2014, she felt she’d found an ideal fit.
Since its founding in 1937, Kohner, Mann & Kailas has represented business interests and litigants and over the years has evolved into a sophisticated business law firm. For Bialzik, the mid-size firm offered the best of both small firms and Big Law.
Melinda Bialzik visited the Palace of Versailles in Paris while attending the Primerus Global Conference.
“We have various practice groups within the firm, and each practice group can almost feel like a small firm,” she explains. “But then you also have the advantage of a larger organization around you with resources and expertise that you can tap in to.”
She along with fellow Harvard Law grad, Ryan Billings, have forged a strong team in business litigation.
“Though our core group is small, we have handled a great variety of business litigation cases, including some very complex, difficult, bet-the-company type cases,” says Bialzik. “There is little we couldn’t handle or help with. We have the necessary experience and depth.”
The work is ever changing, she says, which is one of the things she finds fun about it. She is happy to grow her practice organically, following the interests of her clients.
“I don’t have a map,” she says. “I just follow the road as it comes.”