Messner Reeves Welcomes Three New Attorneys

New year, new talent. We’re thrilled to announce our latest new hires in January. 

​​Kari Valentine – Partner

Kari Valentine joins Messner Reeves as a partner specializing in healthcare and general corporate transactional matters, regulatory compliance and litigation. Valentine also brings experience in liability and loss prevention programs for insured and self-insured clients in multiple practice areas, including professional and general liability, employment, and Medicare/Medicaid fraud and abuse. 

Prior to joining the firm, Valentine served as Associate Vice President of Legal Services for one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, with oversight responsibility for the full-service in-house legal team and outside legal consultants. 

Outside of the office, Valentine has also served as an adjunct instructor for graduate courses in Public Health Law and Ethics and is a frequent presenter on topics such as HIPPA compliance, deposition testimony, alternative dispute resolution, incident reporting, and patent safety. 

Paul Hesse – Of Counsel

Hesse has practiced law for over 39 years, both as a litigation partner of large regional and national law firms and as director of law departments at a large national insurance company. 

For 18 years as a trial and litigation attorney, Hesse represented professionals in malpractice actions along with businesses and insurance companies in litigation and trial. 

After private practice, Hesse assumed management responsibilities at a large national insurance company and its affiliates. He created a new in-house law department consisting of a team of attorneys who advised and counseled all lines of insurance business nationally on coverage issues, examinations under oath, litigation, underwriting, agency issues and real estate mortgages. He also serves as a director of a law department that supervised all insurance breaches of contract and bad faith against the insurer and its affiliates and agents as to all lines of business. 

Along with his career at the firm, Hesse is also a law professor at Glendale University College of Law, teaching real property and real estate finance courses. Hesse has also taught at UCLA’s paralegal program, served as a Judge Pro Tem for the Los Angeles municipal court, served on the ethics committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, served as a law professor at San Fernando School of Law, presented at numerous attorney continuing education programs, and has been recognized for editorial insights in the preface of law school casebook on Property. 

Lena Moeller – Partner

Lena Moeller focuses her practice on medical malpractice litigation and representing healthcare providers in the administrative process before the State Boards. Moeller has extensive experience representing hospitals, nurses and physicians in medical malpractice matters and Board matters in Wyoming.

She has gained invaluable experience working in litigation firms in both Colorado and Wyoming. Prior to joining Messner Reeves, Ms. Moeller was a shareholder at a large civil defense firm in Denver for 14 years and then at a large civil defense firm in Wyoming where she worked for 4 years.

When she is not practicing law, Moeller enjoys spending time with her husband of 22 years, two children and farm animals. Her true passion is horses.