Joy Nissen Beitzel represents clients in the areas of divorce, custody, child support, paternity, and post-decree matters. She enjoys working with clients from all walks of life and finds great satisfaction in helping people navigate Minnesota’s legal system. She is also active in representing pro bono clients through the Volunteer Lawyers Network and the Children’s Law Center. Her favorite aspect of family law is the focus on early alternative dispute resolution, which gives parties the opportunity to reach agreements where possible before investing significant time and financial resources into litigation. Joy has experience litigating as well and has tried several cases involving child support, spousal maintenance, and child custody and parenting time.

During law school, Joy worked as a Certified Student Attorney for the Ramsey County Attorney’s office, where she represented the County in more than 250 hearings dealing with paternity and child support matters. While in law school, Joy also participated in a winning civil rights appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She assisted in the briefing process and personally appeared in oral argument before the Court in San Francisco, California. See Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903 (9th Cir. 2014). In addition, Joy was a Minnesota Justice Foundation (MJF) law clerk for Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, where she represented clients in immigration matters.

Joy grew up in Nebraska and has spent time in Latin America, where she researched the development of property rights in urban Honduras. She is fluent in Spanish and enjoys working with immigrants, especially the Latino community. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outside and exploring the North Shore with her husband and baby daughter, Ingrid. Joy and her husband also participate as a host family through Safe Families for Children, a non-profit offering short-term care for parents who are temporarily unable to care for their children.