Spencer Fane attorney Jim Lodoen was featured in the Volunteer Highlight section of the Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN)’s March 2025 newsletter.
In his spotlight, Jim shared what he finds most meaningful about providing pro bono legal services. “I have done pro bono work my entire career and through VLN for over 25 years. I consider pro bono a professional, civic, and spiritual obligation as a tithe of my time to assist others. Clients often have multiple legal, personal, and mental health issues at play. While I usually cannot solve everything, I can help to solve some things, provide direction for others, and hopefully bring a measure of peace to their day. Pro bono work connects me to a segment of society I would not generally meet and reminds me of my blessings and to be grateful. Quite simply, pro bono work keeps me grounded. I need that.”
Established in 1966, the VLN provides civil legal services to low-income Minnesotans through volunteer attorneys. These legal volunteers advance the nonprofit’s mission to protect and promote the basic human needs of people in poverty.
At Spencer Fane, Jim helps businesses and entrepreneurs prepare for and resolve financial challenges, whether arising from changing market conditions, excess leverage, operational issues, or unanticipated events. His 40 years of experience dealing with all aspects of financial distress inform his counsel to clients as they consider bankruptcy, receivership, and out-of-court alternatives to preserve and maximize value, return to profitability, and to restructure the business enterprise. Jim also helps secured lenders, subordinated lenders, private equity firms, and portfolio companies with the structuring and restructuring of indebtedness, monetizing of assets, and the acquisition of distressed assets and businesses. This impressive work recently helped earn him recognition from the Minnesota Lawyer as a Minnesota ICON.
Learn more about the VLN here.