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Pat Kiernan was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He came from a large family and grew up in a household where treating people right, working hard and helping others were emphasized. He also grew up in an environment where an honest, ethical approach to business was stressed as the main path to success. Pat’s family members worked for companies large and small and several of his family members had experience in financial and accounting matters. As a result, Pat was interested in community service and business based on his personal background.
Pat attended college at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, graduating with a degree in political science and minors in economics and philosophy. While in college, he took coursework in accounting and was on the Dean’s List for several semesters. He also worked as an intern for Congressman Bill Frenzel of the Third Congressional District of Minnesota. In addition, Pat was elected a student senator at Notre Dame and, as part of his duties, was on the Notre Dame Student Business Board. The Business Board was the Board of Directors for several student-run businesses on campus and gave Pat some firsthand experience in dealing with business matters.
After college, Pat attended and graduated from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. While in law school, Pat won the Golden Gavel Award for outstanding oral advocacy during the law school moot court competition. He also served on the law school’s regional moot court team and did a judicial internship with Judge Theodore McMillan of the Eight Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.
After graduating from law school, Pat worked for several mid-size private law firms in the St. Louis area. He practiced a broad range of civil law, including worker’s compensation, corporate law, construction law, condemnation law, family law, traffic law, employment law, contract law and property law. However, Mr. Kiernan concentrates
mainly on
criminal defense,
DUI/DWI and
traffic law.
After several years in private practice, Pat decided to move to government service and become an assistant prosecuting attorney for the City of St. Louis. Pat Kiernan worked for the prosecuting attorney’s office for eight years and tried over 30 jury trials and over 100 bench trials during that period of time. Mr. Kiernan prosecuted all kinds of criminal cases, including theft, robbery, drug cases, complex fraud cases and murder cases. He served in the city prosecutor’s homicide unit and also was the head of the white collar crime unit for three years.
During his career, Mr. Kiernan prosecuted several high profile and complex cases, either as first chair or participating on the trial team. These cases included the Zein and Maria Isa murder case, the Midnight Basketball case, the St. Louis City voter fraud case and the John Tiller case. As head of the white collar crimes unit, Mr. Kiernan also assisted the city prosecutor in several civil matters. These included, formulating the office’s response to the post-conviction DNA cases brought by the Innocence Project and consulting with the office on employment matters.
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