Mawerdi Hamid

MAWERDI is an Assistant Attorney General for the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, where she advises state agencies in all bankruptcy and tax matters. She represents state agencies in bankruptcy courts around the country in all bankruptcy proceedings, and she regularly teaches bankruptcy topics to government attorneys and tax litigants who often deal with bankruptcy issues. She also co-chairs the training committee and the BIPOC Alliance ERG at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. In 2019, she co-chaired the trial problem subcommittee of Court Camp of the Community Outreach Committee of the Federal Bar Association’s Minnesota Chapter. Prior to her appointment as an Assistant Attorney General, she clerked for Hon. Robert Kressel at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota and U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit, and she was a staff attorney for Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid in Minneapolis.

Mawerdi’s interest in bankruptcy began while she was working as a banker at Wells Fargo bank during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. She saw families who had been financially successful earlier in the year stop by the branch to drop off their house keys because they could not afford their homes any longer, and she watched families plead with bank leadership for a break on their bank fees and refinance options. When she started law school the next year and took a bankruptcy class, she knew she wanted to help families and businesses facing financial hardship navigate the financial world. In law school, she volunteered with a legal aid office in Lexington, Ky., helping bankruptcy attorneys file bankruptcy petitions, review documents and attend hearings. In her current role, she appreciates the impact government lawyers have in a bankruptcy case and is inspired by the insolvency profession’s commitment to community service and financial literacy work.

Mawerdi was appointed to a three-year term as a member of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Bankruptcy Practice Committee, a successor to the Local Rules Committee whose main functions are to recommend needed local rules changes and to serve as a liaison between the bankruptcy court and bankruptcy community by providing input and suggestions for improving the administration of bankruptcy cases and proceedings in the District of Minnesota. She was one of the five attorneys selected for the 2019 National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges (NCBJ) Hon. Cornelius Blackshear Presidential Fellowship, and she was named Attorney of the Year by Minnesota Lawyer in 2020 for Protecting Minnesotans in a Pandemic. In addition, she was one of 50 women lawyers in Minnesota to be featured as 50 Years, 50 Voices of Minnesota Women Lawyers during its 50th anniversary celebration. She regularly volunteers with CARE and in 2019 received the CARE Minnesota Volunteer of the Year for presenting financial literacy programs to middle school and high school students. Also, from 2014-16, she co-chaired the statewide Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Interdisciplinary team at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid for all legal services offices in the state of Minnesota.