Taft Minneapolis’s director of associate advancement, Alison Plavin, and attorney Alina Yasis co-presented the workshop “The Business of Law” as part of the Professional Essentials Milestone program at the University of Minnesota Law School. The workshop took place on Oct. 30, 2024.

A component of a broader program within the law school’s career center, the workshop is designed to introduce law students to core concepts surrounding development and interpersonal skills critical for career success. Students have the opportunity to complete the milestone program throughout their three years of law school. Learn more about the Professional Essentials Milestone here.

Plavin is a director of associate advancement at Taft. In this multi-faceted role, she supports associates and associate-development strategies, goals, and objectives across the firm. This includes guiding and mentoring associates throughout their career stages, matching associates to work opportunities with an eye toward achieving a purposeful and equitable distribution of work assignments, contributing to firm-wide initiatives and programs designed to enhance associate development and retention, and partnering with firm leaders to strategically support overall associate advancement.

Yasis focuses her attorney practice primarily on representing publicly and privately held companies in merger and acquisition transactions across a wide array of industries, with a focus on health care. Additionally, she provides counsel to clients in the areas of private equity, securities regulation, and general commercial and corporate law. Prior to joining Taft, Yasis worked at a well-known law firm in Minneapolis as a corporate and securities attorney and gained further transactional experience through in-house legal clerkships at medical device and health insurance companies.