Mike Ciresi

Michael "Mike" V. Ciresi is a prominent trial attorney and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for the United States Senate from Minnesota. He dropped out on March 10, 2008. Ciresi gained his public reputation by litigating several high-profile mass tort cases. Ciresi is the former Chairman of the Executive Board of the Minneapolis firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP, a 250-lawyer firm he joined in 1971[2].

He was counsel to the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota against the American tobacco industry, suing in 1994 as the second of eventually 46 states to join in the tobacco litigation. Ciresi's Minneapolis law firm, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, of which he is the chairman, settled with the tobacco companies in 1998 with an agreement for the tobacco defendants to pay the state of Minnesota $6 billion. The law firm donated $30 million to the Minneapolis Foundation in 1998, a contribution made possible by the settlement fee; at the time, the gift was thought to be the largest contribution from a law firm to a community foundation. Mike serves on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, the University of St. Thomas, as the Board of Governors of the University of St. Thomas School of Law. He currently serves on the board of Regions Hospital Foundation and Minnesota Early Learning Foundation.

Ciresi's law firm was frequently mentioned in the press for the remarkably high legal fees collected in the 1998 tobacco settlement, fees variously reported as between $440 million and $558 million[3]. The fees were to be paid over two years[4], in contrast to the 25-year annual payment scheme used to pay the plaintiffs of the case, the State of Minnesota. Hence, the time-adjusted value (or net present value) of the Ciresi firm's fees, relative to the total award, was enhanced. The fees were funded directly by tobacco companies.

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