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Starck, Mirr, & Lorenz
• Business Law
Ruder Ware
THEY KNOW BUSINESS
Ruder Ware attorneys are there to help clients with their legal needs throughout the life cycle of a business.
Emilu Starck
Paul Mirr
Andrew Lorenz
For more than a century, the attorneys at Ruder Ware have worked with clients through all parts of the business life cycle, from entrepreneurs trying to get startup ideas off the ground to those who are passing businesses on to the next generation. With 45 attorneys, the full-service law firm has broad expertise, from banking and litigation to bankruptcy and creditors’ rights to employment law, elder law, and estate planning.
“We strive to be a one-stop shop, so whatever would come up for a business owner or a business, we feel like we can and want to help them with that,” said Paul Mirr, an attorney in Ruder Ware’s Eau Claire office who primarily focuses on business transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, and real estate development.
Ruder Ware’s roots go back more than a century in Wisconsin. The firm was founded in 1920 by Attorney George L. Ruder in Wausau. The firm grew in size, experience, and profile throughout the 20th century, and in 2005 merged with another firm – Garvey, Anderson, Johnson, Geraci & Mirr – which had been serving the Eau Claire area since 1954. Today, Ruder Ware has offices not only in Eau Claire and Wausau but also in Green Bay and Wisconsin Rapids.
Mirr, an Eau Claire native, is a second-generation attorney with Ruder Ware: His father, Joseph Mirr, has been with the firm for 40 years. The younger Mirr’s work has made him part of major projects across the Chippewa Valley, both public and private. For example, Mirr helped with the land acquisition and development agreements necessary to create the Pablo Center at the Confluence, downtown Eau Claire’s arts center.
“It’s not always a bad thing to go see an attorney,” Mirr said. “In my case, it means you’ve got something exciting going on in your life, whether you’re buying or selling or what have you, it’s usually a positive thing versus a negative thing.”
“We strive to be a one-stop shop.”
Now that he’s in his tenth year with the firm, Mirr said, “I’m getting to the point where I’ve actually helped some clients from the get-go start their companies, and now I’ve had a couple that are at the point where they’re actually selling their companies, and it’s just been really fun to see the other side of it.”
Attorney Andrew Lorenz – also an Eau Claire native – joined the firm about two years ago after serving as a clerk for a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. As a litigator, Lorenz works with clients ranging from individuals and small-business owners to large statewide entities. Whoever the client may be, Lorenz seeks to find the best way to resolve disputes on their behalf. “Sometimes that is a settlement or a quick resolution – mediation with the other side,” he said. “Sometimes it is starting a lawsuit and sometimes it is going all the way through trial.”
If a dispute goes to trial, Lorenz said, it’s important to avoid letting emotions rule, which is a temptation in an adversarial situation. “When you end up in a courtroom, you literally are opposed to another party and sometimes it’s hard to want to compromise or negotiate when you’re in that position,” Lorenz said, “but sometimes it is the best solution to come to a compromise where everyone can control the outcome as opposed to letting it go on until a judge or jury has to make the decision for you.”
Attorney Emilu Starck, who also works in Ruder Ware’s Eau Claire office, added that the most rewarding part of her job is speaking to a client who’s in a difficult situation and developing a plan of action to help them and to give them peace of mind. “We might not have the answer yet, but we have a strategic legal plan that’s based in sound legal reasoning, and we have a strategy to get to an answer,” she said.
Starck works with a variety of clients facing challenging situations, from partners looking to transition their businesses to firms that have suffered data security breaches. At other times, she’s helping entrepreneurs working to structuring the ownership of new firms to those who are transitioning ownership to a new generation.
Starck attributes Ruder Ware’s longevity to its success at serving the region’s businesses through multiple generations of ownership. “We have our finger on the pulse of the business needs and the business community within Eau Claire,” she said. “We can bring that perspective to help our clients because we’ve been here for a while.”
