With over 15 years of experience, Eva Cheney Hatcher is a Senior Attorney with Olup & Associates. She graduated from Sioux Falls University in South Dakota, Summa Cum Laude, with degrees in English and Business. She was a member of the Honors Society, and named as an Outstanding College Student of America. She attended the University of South Dakota School of Law where she earned her Juris Doctorate, was awarded the American Jurisprudence Award for Legal Research and Writing, a Law School Foundation Academic Scholarship, and was recognized by the Who's Who Among American Law Students.

Eva brings with her a wealth of professional, as well as personal, experience.  She has practiced in several areas of law, including family, business, probate, estate planning, bankruptcy, real estate, criminal, and administrative law.    For the past five years she has practiced family law exclusively.   She believes her knowledge in several areas of law and alternative dispute resolution enables her to better represent her family law clients. She has both the ability and expertise to develop solutions that meet the needs of her clients and their families whether the issues are simple or complex.  She is dedicated to making the legal process understandable and comfortable for her clients while advocating strongly for their interests.

Also a Qualified Neutral under Rule 114 of the Minnesota General Rules of Practice, Ms. Cheney Hatcher heads the Firm's Alternative Dispute Resolution Department.  As a Qualified Neutral, she offers people a variety of services for resolving issues without the financial and emotional cost of trial.   These services include Mediation, Arbitration, Early Neutral Evaluation, Parenting Consultant, Parenting Time Expeditor, and Consensual Special Magistrate.  She began providing Alternative Dispute Resolution services in 1996 after she obtained her original 40-hour Family Law training.  Since that time, she has received advanced mediation training for multi-party, employment, family law, and peer mediation; and also obtained adjudicative training to qualify as an Arbitrator and Consensual Special Magistrate.  In 1997 and 1998 she was chosen by the American Bar Association to receive Peer Mediation training, a pilot program to bring mediation into high schools.  Ms. Cheney Hatcher was one of three professionals who developed and implemented the first Peer Mediation program in a South Dakota high school setting.    

Eva has held membership in several professional alternative dispute resolution organizations including the Association of Conflict Resolution (formerly the Academy of Family Mediators); American Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section; Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC); the Minnesota Bar Association-Alternative Dispute Resolution Section; South Dakota Mediation Association; South Dakota Bar Association-ADR Committee; and local mediation groups.   She is also a member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts,   an interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict.

Ms. Cheney Hatcher is currently licensed in Minnesota, South Dakota and Pennsylvania in both state and federal courts. She is a member of the American Bar Association; the Minnesota Bar Association; Hennepin County Bar Association; Dakota County Bar Association; and South Dakota Bar Association.  She also lectures on topics pertaining to family law, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution.