Page 3 - Steve Bergerson

In the words of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Truer words could not be spoken about Steve Bergerson’s road to becoming the founder and
chair of Fredrikson & Byron’s advertising, marketing and trademark law group, and his September retirement after 40 years of practicing law.
“I can trace my legal career back to the middle school teacher who kept telling me that I should become an attorney,” recalled Bergerson. “Back then, we were encouraged to discuss our test scores with the teacher and argue for higher scores, and she said I often won. That thought lingered in the back of my mind from that point on, though my path there ended up being anything but direct.”
While a student at Northern State College in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Bergerson quickly transformed a popular local bar band, The Mystics, into one of the Midwest’s best known ballroom and recording groups. They toured regionally for two to three weeks at a time with the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Hullaballoos and other top performers, and were among the first group of inductees when the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was created in 2009. After changing majors from commercial art to business in his second year, he still had no idea what he really wanted to do, but because of his success in promoting the band, he realized that he enjoyed marketing and promoting, which led him to major in advertising.
After two years at Northern State, Bergerson and his family (one child, another on the way) moved to Minneapolis, where he enrolled at the University of Minnesota to pursue majors in advertising and journalism while continuing to play in local bands. It was the height of consumerism and Bergerson recalls a “light bulb moment” during his advertising 101 class when he realized that his calling was advertising law. After graduating, he was accepted to William Mitchell College of Law, and attended night classes while working as an account executive at ad agency Campbell-Mithun. The CFO appointed himself Bergerson’s mentor and had him review ads for potential legal issues. He was offered an in-house counsel position upon graduation, but decided he wanted to create his own law practice.
So, when he graduated from law school in 1974, he took a faculty position in the School
WHEN MAD MEN
BECOME LAWYERS
By Lesley Boyd
Eclipse Productions