Earl Wins joined Toepfer at Law in 2022 to fill a gap in our services offerings both in the criminal defense and CHIPS worlds. He also practices in the realm of divorce and child custody. Also, as it happens, he’s not just a lawyer – he’s a person, with real life experiences and interests.
Before coming to Minnesota, Earl spent five years in Grand Forks, ND where he earned a double major bachelor’s degree in management and Information Systems. He then utilized that knowledge base for the next decade to fix printers and reset people’s passwords when they were too silly to remember them. Ultimately, he needed something more fulfilling than being yelled at by Janet in accounting because the internet wasn’t working after she kicked the network cable out of her computer, and he returned to school to get his MBA. He determined that any job he could get with the MBA wasn’t really one he wanted, so after finishing up that degree plan he enrolled in law school at William Mitchell. He worked as a law clerk in the mornings, then worked a late shift at his corporate job to pay the bills, and then continued to work on law school at night all to chase his dream of becoming a lawyer and sticking it to the man.
After graduation, Earl focused his practice exclusively on criminal defense as a public defender, where he handled several hundred cases and gained more experience than anyone could ask for. The massive case load taught him to think on his feet and be familiar and comfortable with chaos. He later worked with many parents in the Child Protection System and developed an understanding and appreciation for the uniqueness inherent to that highly specialized area of law. Most recently, within the last few years, he has branched out into more traditional family law, helping people through divorce and custody matters. He believes that due to the level of overlap between these areas of law, having a holistic understanding of all of them provides a benefit that is difficult to find without hiring multiple attorneys.
Earl believes being an attorney means being a problem solver. In his words, “Nobody calls our office unless they need help with a situation. Our profession is about being creative as well as knowledgeable. It’s about knowing the questions to ask as well as having the answers. It’s about telling the better story that makes sense to the heart as well as the mind. Some of our greatest successes come after asking not ‘what do I want and how do I get it,’ but instead asking, ‘what do they want, and how can I give it to them.’”
Earl offers one bit of free legal advice to all potential clients: “If you have to break the law, break one law at a time. You’re much less likely to get caught.”
Earl married an absolutely lovely woman who will remain nameless for digital privacy concerns, but we think there’s a high probability she’ll read this, so we’ll reinforce that she is, indeed, awesome. They have two amazing children together, and Earl spends as much time with them as humanly possible (unless they are sleeping in which case he can be found with his nose in a thick book or with his eyes glued to his smartphone playing DC Legends).
