By Andrew Cohen
Innovative and powerful leadership is evident throughout the UC Berkeley Law community, from students and alumni to faculty and staff. We will be highlighting various examples to showcase how such leadership advances justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
Colleagues call Andrew Mohring ’85 a perennial paradox.
Yes, this year’s Minnesota State Bar Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner is a fierce advocate for his clients with an impressive track record over 30-plus years as a federal public defender and sometime civil rights and civil litigator. But peers say Mohring’s integrity, mentorship, and tireless work supporting fellow lawyers in recovery truly sets him apart.
An aspiring lawyer since early adolescence, Mohring found UC Berkeley Law to be a great fit and formed meaningful connections with several faculty members. Clinic work in Fresno provided “the satisfaction that comes from telling the stories of people who are not generally given the opportunity to speak, who are not generally heard,” and drove home “how the law often makes promises upon which it does not deliver.”
Volunteer work and civic involvement became career hallmarks. District of Minnesota Federal Defender Katherian Roe says Mohring continually models “patience, empathy, and thoughtful advocacy” as the coordinator of their district’s federal defender mentor program and that his mentorship and teaching “has left a distinct imprint” on their state’s legal community.
“He is kind, thoughtful, compassionate, and has a human spirit that draws others to him,” Roe says. “But he is also a tough, relentless, sharp-edged advocate who will fight intensely to defend his client against what can seem like the overwhelming power of the government.”
For years as the First Assistant Federal Defender, and currently of counsel at Goetz & Eckland in Minneapolis, Mohring has found unique approaches to thorny cases dealing with corruption, fraud, money laundering, securities, tax, and other white-collar crimes. He is also an adjunct law professor at the University of Minnesota.
Experience-fueled versatility
Mohring, who plans to move back to Berkeley next year with his wife Barbara Buenz and their dog Alma — they have two sons living in San Francisco — credits his well-rounded background (judicial clerk, public defender, law firm partner, law school teacher) for his success and service.
“Indigent defense and community work that benefits the disadvantaged and dispossessed, that’s where the greatest need is,” he says. “But selfishly it’s also where the best stories and the best community of like-minded people is found.”
Mohring’s work helping attorneys navigate addiction so they can return to effective, ethical practice adds a special dimension to a rewarding career helping people.
“The ways we’re given opportunities to serve, to be of use to others, are enormously varied,” Mohring says of wanting “to make positive contributions when the opportunities present, as they often do, in pretty much every aspect of life.”
Criminal defense attorney Dane DeKrey says Mohring has helped many clients avert subpar lawyering by attorneys in active addiction.
“He saved my clients from the worst version of myself, and made it so they get the best version of myself. He taught me to be a better lawyer and made me a better human,” says DeKrey, who nominated Mohring for the award. “Whether it’s in courtrooms, church basements, or designing and running the district’s compassionate release protocol during COVID-19, Andrew saves lives. I know because he saved mine, and I’m not alone. The number of lives Andrew has touched boggles the mind.”