Leo Wilking

With nearly 40 years of legal experience, Leo Wilking is widely considered North Dakota’s preeminent defender of employees and employee rights. Leo fights to hold companies accountable for all sorts of illegal conduct, including wrongful termination, discrimination, and sexual harassment, to name just a few. These fights happen in board rooms and courtrooms across North Dakota and they all have one thing in common: a commitment to vindicating the rights of people who have been wronged by their employer.

A native New Yorker, Leo cut his educational teeth on the East Coast, attending Harvard College for his undergraduate studies and then Fordham University for law school. After graduation, and with his future uncertain, Leo took a leap of faith and headed west to accept a job as an Assistant Attorney General in the State of North Dakota’s Tax Department. After two years, Leo went back east to work as a Staff Attorney for legendary North Dakota Senator, Quentin N. Burdick.

Leo then came back to North Dakota in 1982, and has been there ever since. His law career began with the Nilles Law Firm. After 25 years with Nilles, Leo decided to “hang a shingle” and formed the Wilking Law Firm. And for the past 15 years, Wilking Law has established itself as the leading employee-side employment law firm in North Dakota.

During his tenure at Wilking Law, Leo has handled just about everything under the sun when it comes to defending the rights of employees—discrimination, retaliation, unemployment, unpaid overtime, severance agreements, and professional licensing. He has also participated in more than 300 hearings before North Dakota administrative law judges. Simply put, no lawyer in North Dakota has more experience and expertise in this area of the law than Leo Wilking. And his long shadow—both figuratively and literally—will cast across the state long after he’s gone.

As his storied career winds down, Leo has decided to partner with Ringstrom DeKrey to ensure his work and commitment to the cause lives on. Against that backdrop, Leo has joined Ringstrom as Of Counsel to ensure that Wilking Law seamlessly transitions to Ringstrom DeKrey.

Outside of the law, Leo lives in downtown Fargo on historic 8th Street with his wife, Martha Leclerc, who is the Vice President of Contracting and Strategic Reimbursement for Sanford Health.  Leo has three grown children, who live in various locations across the country. Leo and Martha have a condo in Zihuatanejo, Mexico and plan to spend winters there upon retirement.