New shareholder

“You hear it all the time,” says Hayden Roslansky with a smile. “ ‘You’re good at arguing. You should be a lawyer.’

 

“But as far as I’m concerned, practicing law is about being analytical; you have to love rules, be ready to follow a clear order of operations. And you have to approach the rules with a certain level of creativity.”

 

After first joining the well-known local firm Patton, Hoversten and Berg (PHB) in 2021, Roslansky, 29, has recently become a shareholder with the professional association. He works full time in the Janesville office, a place where he feels he fits right in.

 

Roslansky grew up in Lake Park, Iowa. Given the town’s population of about 1,200, Roslansky mentions graduating with a class of 18 students in which, whether they lived in town or the country, “everyone was family.”

 

As the only member of PHB working full-time in the Janesville office, Roslansky says he likes the idea of becoming “the town lawyer.” 

 

“Bill [Hoversten] told me when he asked whether I would like to work out of this office,” Roslansky recalled. “He said Janesville is the kind of town where people walk on in with their questions; they don’t really see a need to make an appointment.

 

“That works fine for me. Whenever possible, I set other things aside and we take some time to find out what we can do for them.”

 

Roslansky’s path to becoming a lawyer began with undergraduate work at Hamline University in St. Paul. He went on to attend Mitchell Hamline Law School. He then served an internship with the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, an organization which lobbies at the state legislature on behalf of smaller communities. 

 

After spending the years of his education and his internship in the Twin Cities, Roslansky says he came to realize he missed his roots. “I wanted to get closer to home without going all the way home,” he explains. “So I began looking for a position in southern Minnesota.”

 

In November of 2021, he came on board with PHB. Already early in 2022, he began his position in the Janesville office. At the start of this year, he took the step of becoming a shareholder, a word with many of the same implications as being a “partner,” with the law firm.

 

“It’s a commitment to the firm,” Roslansky says of his decision. “For me, it’s also a commitment to the community of Janesville.

 

“I plan to stay here.”

 

While some lawyers find themselves traveling to numerous different courtrooms to attend hearings and trials, Roslansky says his days are a bit more predictable. 

 

“About 90 percent of my work has to do with estates and estate planning,” he explains. “When I take a matter to court, it’s often for a very short probate matter. These days, those are mostly done online.” He mentions being grateful not having to spend a lot of time on the road for the sake of appearances which often last only minutes, since they do not typically entail much controversy.

 

The Janesville office of PHB has documents and records going back about 75 years, since the firm had merged in 2004 with the office of Cliff Gardner, who had been a lawyer and community leader since the 1960s, and whose father had begun the firm decades before that.

 

In keeping with the idea of being ‘the town lawyer,” Roslansky describes that longevity as an important benefit to the community. 

 

“People come in and need to know something about an action their parents may have taken long ago,” he says. “We’re able to go into the files, find that information, and work forward from there.”

 

Roslansky mentions it feels good to provide this stability. He said that, as someone who specializes in estate planning, he finds it gratifying to provide assistance to people who have spent decades building their lives and their finances.

 

“At its simplest,” he summarizes, “I’m glad I can help keep the family farm in the family.”

 

Roslansky explains there are a number of legal tools families can put in place to allow a comfortable retirement for the older generation while ensuring the assets they have acquired are protected and can be passed along to the next generation.

 

In addition to conferring individually with clients, Roslansky sometimes offers planning seminars. In mid-May, he presented a number of them at facilities owned by Dennis Steffel Omtvedt Funeral and Cremation Services.

 

Based on his experience so far, and asked what he wishes everyone knew about estate planning, Roslansky was quick to respond.

 

“There’s an old saying, ‘You’re never too young to die,’” he says.  “I would want every adult to know a lot of time, money and frustration could be saved if they had three documents in place: a power of attorney, a transfer on death deed, and a health care directive.

 

“By spending an hour or so with an attorney now and getting those papers in place, they would be protecting their family in the future.

 

“If there is a sudden death and those documents do not exist, it could take weeks of extra time to get matters settled and cost thousands of dollars that could have been saved.”

 

Roslansky also offers a bit of advice to folks considering a career as a lawyer. “You want to be sure and use your undergraduate degree to truly explore your interests,” he suggests. “The profession of being a lawyer has a certain reputation that doesn’t always line up with how things will go.

 

“You have to work hard as a lawyer. You have to find a balance between what you can do as an everyday human being and the expectations people impose on you.”

 

Remembering one case where he was able to find a positive resolution for a client who had come to feel her cause was hopeless, Roslansky advises, “For me, it feels genuinely good to help and serve others.

 

“It makes the effort, the hours and the stress worthwhile.”