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Mueller on a mission to help others

By: JESSICA STEPHEN//September 30, 2015//

Mueller on a mission to help others

By: JESSICA STEPHEN//September 30, 2015//

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For Travis Mueller, practicing law is all about relationships.

“There’s so much value in building personal relationships with other attorneys and with clients,” said Mueller, an associate attorney at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren in Milwaukee.

“I had a very academic approach to my career,” he said. “You think if you can figure out the right answer, the best answer that you’ll be able to get the result that you want. But I’ve come to learn how important personal relationships and a degree of trust can be for practice, both in gaining clients’ trust and understanding who they are as a person. And, in working with colleagues, when there is a professional courtesy and a professional trust, it enables you to accomplish things with less difficulty.”

So, cultivating those relationships has become an integral part of Mueller’s business transactional law practice. It’s also what he’s come to like most about his work.

“Once you build a relationship with a client, interact with the families, you can see tangible results. You can see the benefit in someone’s life,” said Mueller, who works with large businesses as well as many privately owned, family-run companies.

“That’s what’s most enjoyable for me.”

It’s also one of his biggest challenges, since he doesn’t want to let his clients down.

“This is a client-services business, and those needs and wants don’t always come up at a convenient time. So you try to be as responsive and prompt as possible, which means sometimes you work weekends; sometimes you drop your plans.”

Balancing those interests is something Tim Reardon has watched Mueller work to achieve.

“He is very dedicated to the profession and the clients. And he’s a very good communicator. He’s very personable. He connects well with others.”

All traits, Reardon said, that have helped Mueller earn trust from his clients, both at the firm and in his pro bono work serving as general counsel for Acts Community Development, more commonly known as Acts Housing, a Milwaukee-based organization that helps low-income families become homeowners.

“I believe in their mission,” Mueller said. “I think they’re doing a lot of great things, so I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to work with them.”

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