Vildan Teske is a founding partner of Teske, Katz, Kitzer & Rochel in Minneapolis. She has a national practice focused on complex and class litigation on behalf of consumers, service members and employees. Vildan is a frequent lecturer on consumer rights, class actions, discovery issues, service member rights, judicial selection, and has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on access to justice in our court system.
Vildan joined the FBA in 1995 and has served in leadership roles at the chapter and national level since that time. Vildan was honored to be selected as the first recipient of the FBA’s Robyn Spalter Outstanding Achievement Award in 2013. Shortly after joining the FBA and the Minnesota Chapter, she proposed and founded the chapter’s Newer Lawyers Committee and was appointed its first chair. Since then she has served in several chapter leadership capacities including three years as Co-Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion and is currently the Minnesota Chapter’s President-Elect.
Vildan’s work in founding the Newer Lawyers Committee early in her career led her to be appointed to the national Younger Lawyers Division (YLD) board in 1996-97. Vildan was then elected for each position on the YLD leadership ladder. She served as national chair of YLD in 2003-2004 and a member of one of the last national executive committees prior to the transition to the current FBA governing structure. She also chaired the YLD Shaw Public Service Grant for five years, worked on the Younger Federal Lawyer Award program, the Supreme Court Admissions program as well as a number of initiatives. As chair of the YLD, she focused especially on working with each local chapter to start, or bolster, programming for younger attorneys and law students. This resulted in a number of chapters creating sections/committees for their younger attorneys.
Vildan recently finished a three-year term on the national board of directors of the FBA. She has been appointed by the president to serve on the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, the FBA Task Force on Younger Lawyer Courtroom Experience, and the newly created Governance Task Force which will make recommendations regarding the leadership structure of the association. In the last 24 years of her national FBA involvement, Vildan has also chaired the Audit Committee, served on the Sections and Divisions Council, the Sarah T. Hughes Award Committee, the editorial board of The Federal Lawyer, the Constitution and Bylaws Committee, the Membership Committee and was appointed to the first National Diversity Task Force and then the Special Committee on Diversity. She also served as Parliamentarian of the national FBA and has been a member of the Federal Litigation Section, the Military and Veterans Law Section, and the Labor and Employment section. Vildan has served as an appointed member of the National Council for a number of years and was honored to be elected a Fellow of the FBA Foundation.
Vildan received her law degree, cum laude, from the University of Minnesota Law School and her Bachelors in Business Sciences from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. She has served in leadership positions in a number of bar associations and boards throughout her legal career. More recently she was appointed to serve on the Federal Practice Committee for the United States District Court, District of Minnesota, by Chief Judge John R. Tunheim. Vildan has also been appointed by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith to their Federal Judicial Selection Committee to make recommendations for an Article III judicial opening in the district. Vildan has been recognized by her peers on a variety of annual lists including being named to the Top 100 Minnesota Super Lawyers List by Super Lawyers magazine in 2018 and 2019. She has also been recognized for her work on diversity and inclusion in the legal community by Minnesota Lawyer Magazine as a 2018 recipient of its Diversity and Inclusion Award, as well as again in 2019 as a past president of the Infinity Project which focuses on diversity on the bench.