Diane is driven to find innovative, efficient, and community-centered legal solutions for her clients. She has a passion for solving complex real estate issues.
Overview
Diane's practice focuses on real estate development, land use, and environmental law, including the purchase and sale of land, zoning, title clearance, brownfields redevelopment, and public finance. She strives to build strong, healthy communities by helping clients buy, sell, lease, develop, and redevelop properties, which, in turn, brings housing, employment, commerce, energy, entertainment, and many more assets to communities.
Diane's practice is rooted in her background in and commitment to public health and community development. Before practicing law, she studied at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and worked with the Minnesota Department of Health. During law school, Diane worked with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
She helps clients identify practical solutions to complex and novel legal problems that clients face in real estate transactions. She provides clients efficient, thorough legal research that is communicated clearly in writing—skills that she honed after law school while serving as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Justice Margaret Chutich of the Minnesota Supreme Court. While serving the state's top court, Diane advised the court's justices regarding the state's most unique and difficult legal issues, and she became proficient in presenting the issues in simple terms.
In addition to her real estate practice, Diane represents clients in family law matters with the law firm's Deinard Legal Clinic, a medical-legal partnership with a Minneapolis medical clinic serving low-income clinic patients.
Outside of work, Diane enjoys training with her competitive swim club, canoeing Minnesota's lakes and rivers, and biking to local breweries.
News & Insights
News
Publications
Co-author, "Fostering Client Altrusim & the Common Good in the Practice of Law: Learning from Emerging Movements in Business & Economics," 44 Mitchell Hamline Law Review 1, 2018
Co-author, "A Call to Cultivate the Public Interest: Beyond Pro Bono," 51 Washington University Journal of Law & Pol'y 95, 2016
"Property Law: The Crossroads of Capacity and Livability: A Green Light to Neighborhood Opposition as a Factual Basis for Denying Conditional Use Permits," 42 Mitchell Hamline Law Review, 2016
Recognitions
Recognitions
Recognized for pro bono work by the Minnesota Supreme Court and Minnesota State Bar Association, 2020
Student Award of Merit, Mitchell Hamline Alumni Association, 2017
Outstanding Service Award, Minnesota Justice Foundation, 2016
Professional & Civic Activities
Professional & Civic Activities
Minnesota Lavender Bar Association
Minnesota State Bar Association, Real Property and Environmental, Natural Resources and Energy Law Sections
Practices & Industries
Admissions
- Minnesota, 2017
Education
Mitchell Hamline School of Law, J.D., summa cum laude, 2017
- Mitchell Hamline Law Review, Executive Editor
- Mitchell Hamline Self-Help Clinic, Executive Director
Tulane University, B.S. Public Health B.A. History, magna cum laude, 2011