3 partners in Ciresi law firm among 7 hurt in Brainerd area car crash

Three partners in a prominent Minneapolis law firm were among seven people injured in a two-vehicle crash in the Brainerd lakes area over the weekend, authorities said Monday.

The attorneys were attending the annual partners meeting at Madden's on Gull Lake for the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi, when the crash occurred about 12:20 p.m. Saturday, said attorney Mike Ciresi.

The law partners injured were Thomas Kayser, 77, of St. Paul; John Eisberg, 76, of Nicasio, Calif., and Jan Conlin, 51, of Minneapolis.

Kayser remained hospitalized with broken bones, Ciresi said.

Also in the car and injured were Eugene Goetz, 63, of Minneapolis, Conlin's husband, and Marlene Kayser, 75, of St. Paul, Thomas Kayser's wife, who also remained hospitalized.

Eisberg, Conlin and Goetz are no longer hospitalized, Ciresi said.

Ciresi said Thomas Kayser was driving the group from Madden's to Ciresi's cabin nearby when the crash occurred.

Laura Giles, 33, of Brainerd, was driving west on Lower County Road 77 and swerved to the right to avoid a vehicle ahead of her waiting to turn left into Dan's Sod Services, according to the Crow Wing County Sheriff's Office.

Giles lost control of her vehicle and struck Kayser's eastbound vehicle, the Sheriff's Office added.

"Tom didn't have a chance," Ciresi said.

Giles and her passenger, 2-year-old son Jakob Bird, of Brainerd, suffered noncritical injuries in the crash about 6 miles east of Madden's.

Ciresi said everyone in the Kayser vehicle suffered broken bones and added that the county emergency personnel "did a remarkable job" at the scene tending to the injured, as did the emergency room at Essentia Health-St. Joseph's Medical Center in Brainerd.