Jeffrey M. Kritzer has been elected a partner in the law firm of Baudler, Baudler, Maus and Blahnik, LLP. Kritzer focuses his practice on business law, employment and labor law, civil litigation, intellectual property and municipal law. He has practiced law in Austin for more than 11 years.

Before joining the Baudler office, Kritzer was corporate attorney for Hormel Foods Corp., where he focused on employment and labor law, contracts and litigation. He is a native of southern Minnesota, growing up in Waterville and graduating from Waterville-Elysian High School.

He then attended Stanford University, where he was elected president of his senior class and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1990. He subsequently worked for a law firm in Washington, D.C., and then managed a retail flooring business for three years before attending the University of Minnesota Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1997.

Kritzer has been active in community affairs and is the current president of the Austin Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the board of directors of the Development Corporation of Austin. He was also on the board of the United Way of Mower County for six years, serving as the distribution chairman for half of that time, and the board of directors of the Riverland Community College Foundation for nine years, serving as president for part of the time.

Kelly M. Wagner has joined the Baudler office as an associate. Prior to joining the firm, she was an Assistant Fillmore County Attorney in Preston, Minn. for over four years. She also served as acting Fillmore County attorney while the elected attorney was deployed for a year in Iraq. She had also been a judicial law clerk for the Honorable L.W. Yost and the Honorable Terry Dempsey, both chambered in McLeod County, Glencoe, Minn. Wagner graduated from Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minn., in 2001. She is also a 1998 graduate of Northern MIchigan University, Marquette, Mich. Wagner is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, the 10th District Bar Association, the Chatfield Lions Club and the NMU Alumni association Board of Directors. She will focus her practice in probate, estates and trusts, real estate and municipal law.

Baudler, Baudler, Maus and Blahnik recently celebrated its 100th anniversary of service to the Austin Community and the surrounding area.