After 12 years under the leadership of litigator Mark Stewart, Ballard Spahr is set to have a new chairman in 2024. 

Peter Michaud, a transactional lawyer from Minneapolis, will be the first non-Philadelphia-based attorney to take up the position in the firm’s history. After 20 years at Lindquist & Vennum, which merged with Ballard back in 2018, Michaud is poised to lead the firm’s 15 offices in a post-pandemic environment that has witnessed attorneys reticent to come back to the office and disruptions from the rise of generative AI.