MINNEAPOLIS, MN – July 28, 2025. Winthrop & Weinstine is proud to announce that attorney Maxwell (Max) Shapiro has been named a 2025 Up & Coming Attorney by Minnesota Lawyer and paralegal Erin Ness has been named a 2025 Unsung Legal Hero by Minnesota Lawyer.
The Up & Coming Attorney award highlights lawyers in their first 10 years of practice who have already distinguished themselves by their achievements, and the Unsung Legal Hereos honor recognizes non-lawyer professionals who play a critical role behind the scenes to ensure the work gets done efficiently and accurately.
Max Shapiro, Up & Coming Attorney
As an associate in Winthrop’s Specialty Tax Credits & Incentives practice, Max represent clients across a broad spectrum of industries who are interested in utilizing various tax credits (including the Research & Development Tax Credit), often relating to the development of new technologies and innovations. Prior to joining the firm, Max spent more than six years gaining practical, hands-on experience as a non-legal tax consultant at a Big 4 accounting firm and as a Federal Tax analyst at a Fortune 100 retailer.
Max is well-known across the firm for his caring, empathetic, and generous spirit and his selfless desire to help both colleagues and clients alike. He has been actively engaged with Wills for Heroes, a program started in South Carolina following September 11th that provides free estate planning services to local first responders, since 2017, and has touched the lives of more than 75 first responders (and their families) over those years. Within the firm, Max serves on the firm’s AI, Attorney Professional Development, DEI, and Pro Bono committees.
Erin Ness, Unsung Legal Hero
While paralegals are generally known to be the “heart” of many legal departments, whether publicly recognized as such or not, few truly embody this essential nature more so than Erin Ness, a senior paralegal at Winthrop & Weinstine. Erin, a senior paralegal in Winthrop’s Real Estate and Tax Credit Financing and Syndication practice, supports a group of more than 50 attorneys, where she routinely navigates complicated real estate transactions and manages time-sensitive matters.
Erin brings nearly two decades of experience in the multifamily housing and tax credit industry, a background quite unique among paralegals in any marketplace. Erin is known for her ability to handle complicated and complex tasks for large and very active clients with composure and skill, masterfully wrangling parties and documents, and handling often unique challenges relating to property acquisitions and sales, partnership interest acquisitions, refinances, 1031 exchanges, and more. Erin is an invaluable asset to Winthrop’s Real Estate and Tax Credit Financing and Syndication practice and has been a key player in the group’s ongoing successes.
The Up & Coming Attorney and Unsung Legal Hero honorees will be recognized September 12, 2025, at The Mosaic in Minneapolis.