Laurie Hanson

Practice Areas
Laurie Hanson has practiced law for 25 years, with a special focus on seniors and their families. She now concentrates her practice exclusively in the areas of Elder Law - Government benefit eligibility, especially Medical Assistance, special needs trusts, supplemental needs trusts, trust and public benefit litigation, estate planning, planning for incapacity, probate, and surrogate decision-making.

Laurie regularly serves as faculty and makes presentations on elder law topics at continuing legal education courses for attorneys through the Minnesota State Bar Association and for professionals obtaining continuing education credits through Kaplan Professional Schools.  In addition, she gives presentations to nursing home family councils, church groups, community groups, and at law schools in the Twin Cities.

Professional Background
Laurie is a 1977 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 1984 Graduate of Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, California where she was a member of the law review and Editor-in-Chief of the Women’s Law Forum.

She is a shareholder of Long Reher Hanson.  Before joining Long Reher Hanson in 2004, Laurie practiced for fourteen years at the Senior Law Project of the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis.  There she represented vulnerable seniors and their families in the areas of Medical Assistance, Medicare, health care directives, basic planning for incapacity, housing, and consumer protection.  She also represented many grandparents raising grandchildren in juvenile, family and probate court.  For her efforts in working with families with aging adults, and her efforts in drafting Minnesota’s third-party custody statute, she was awarded the Dawn Carlson Family Advocate Award in 2003.  Laurie was named a Super Lawyer by her peers from 2001 through 2008.

Before moving back to Minnesota in 1989,  Laurie had a private general practice in Fayetteville, Arkansas where she specialized in health law and family law.  She was a Reginald Heber Smith fellow her first two years following law school and worked with Ozark Legal Services in Fayetteville.

Professional Associations
Laurie is licensed to practice law in Minnesota, California, and Arkansas.  She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Minnesota and California State Bar Associations,  the Minnesota Lavender Bar Association, and the Hennepin County Bar Association.  She is a past Chair of  the Governing Council of the Elder Law Section of the Minnesota State Bar Association and current chair of its Newsletter Committee.  She is also a member of Government Relations Committee of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. She is a member of the Special Needs Alliance, a national invitation-only non-profit organization committed to helping individuals with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who represent them.

In 1994, Laurie co-founded the Minnesota Kinship Caregivers Association, a non-profit organization representing the concerns of people raising grandchildren or children of other kin and friends.  She is currently the past president and an advisor to the Board of Directors. (See www.mkca.org).

Personal
Laurie and her partner Kim Dayton live in a duplex in Uptown in South Minneapolis near Lake Calhoun. Her daughter Sina is a student at the University of Minnesota and her step-son Colin, who has an autism-spectrum disorder called Asperger’s Syndrome, is a student at Augsburg College. Her parents live on the first floor of the duplex -- along with Harriet the dog and three cats, they truly have an inter-generational household! Laurie swims with the Master’s team at the Uptown YWCA, likes to read, and thoroughly enjoys regular walks around the lakes.