Lee McGrath is the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter.  He joined the Institute in December 2004 and litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting economic liberty, school choice, private property, freedom of speech and other individual liberties in both federal and state courts in Minnesota and nationally.  Minnesota Lawyer recognized McGrath as one of 2006's Up and Coming Attorneys.

Under his leadership, the Institute for Justice Minnesota has launched a successful campaign to restore economic liberty as a basic civil right under both the Minnesota State and U.S. Constitutions.  IJ-MN successfully freed African hairbraiders from the State of Minnesota's onerous cosmetology licensing regime, successfully stopped the government from enforcing a blanket ban on advertising, soliciting or using the Internet to conduct lawful, direct sales of wine, and forced the City of Red Wing to end its ban on interstate ship of trash.  

During the summer of 2002, McGrath clerked at IJ's Washington, D.C. headquarters where he provided research used in IJ's amicus brief advocating a remedy of "extension of liberty" in Swedenburg v. Kelly, involving interstate shipping of wine to consumers, and helped formulate an incidental use defense in a misappropriation of identity claim against IJ's client, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Lee received his law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul where he was the president of the local Federalist Society chapter.  Before that, Lee worked for more than 20 years in corporate finance at General Motors and other corporations.  His last position was as Vice President and Treasurer of Jostens, the yearbook and ring company headquartered in Bloomington, Minn. 

In addition to his law degree, Lee holds an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University.  Lee was also a Policy Fellow at the Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.

Lee is married to the former Bonnie Speer.  They have four children and live in Edina, Minn.