Update (February 9, 2018): If you are late to the game, you (and all of us) must confront the painful truth: the “world-wide web” is a world-wide fetid cesspool of information, misinformation, distortion, and propaganda. Lawyers and all people are vulnerable to unjustified and unfair personal attacks. The cost of disseminating defamation has never been […]
In a recent post, we lamented the existence of “zombie cases” — cases where there seem to be no genuine disagreements either as to the facts or the law but the cases persist anyhow for one reason or another (often because a litigant is simply delaying the inevitable). One solution, we suggested, is the more liberal […]
The refrain in The Message by Grandmaster Flash (1982) goes like this: Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge/I’m trying not to lose my head/It’s like a jungle sometimes/It makes me wonder how I keep from going under… Most if not all of us are pushed, we are tried, and we are stressed. […]
The jurist Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938) used the most florid speech of any famous American judge and his description of “fiduciary duties” has been quoted thousands of times because it is quirky and therefore memorable: When it comes to people who owe other people a fiduciary duty (such as business partners), “not honesty alone but, the […]
Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area residents are putting up with quite a lot of disruption due to the upcoming NFL championship football game and one has to wonder what we are getting in return? In particular, what about Minnesota lawyers? Don’t they deserve a little bump, a little compensation, for putting up with this extravagant spectacle? […]
Update (January 24, 2018): Viking Forest Products, LLC v. Twin Mills Timber & Tie Company, Inc. is a nauseating case. The allegations in the case were that Defendant Twin Mills Timber & Tie sold Viking Forest Products non-existent “crane mats” (used in the construction industry as stabilizing pads and bridging for the movement and operation […]
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to free speech (among other critical rights, of course) and even speech that many of us find abhorrent. Many find disrespecting the national flag or refusing to stand during the pledge of allegiance abhorrent but that is protected “symbolic speech.” “It is poignant but fundamental […]
[Editor’s Note: See the comment, below. It is worth noting that Mr. Capistrant’s discipline took a long time but it is not as if he was practicing law during the drawn-out process. The question still remains: why did it take as long as it did?] Joseph Michael Capistrant was a Minnesota lawyer whose misconduct was bad […]
Update (January 19, 2018): In the original post below, we decried the soft discipline of a Minnesota lawyer for serious misconduct. Although we are not trained in mental health diagnosis, in our view, the extraordinary misconduct could only be excused by mental illness. Therefore, in the post below, we advocated for a stiffer penalty than […]
Update (January 11, 2018): Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard argument in the Savoie case, described below. It was not very illuminating and so, to us, it was disappointing. A key problem in the case is that the Court appears to be of the opinion that, under Minnesota law, a personal representative (“PR”) of a […]