Minnesota Litigator
News & Commentary
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Firm Management Practice Pointer: The Classic White Collar Misstep = Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
One time or another, at month’s end, all mature businesses have at least faced the risk of owing more money than they have in the bank. All mature businesses have lines of credit with lenders or one kind or another to smooth out cash flow problems. But, when a business enters the death spiral that ends in its ultimate dissolution, […]
Mentioning Insurance Coverage in Civil Litigation Is High Risk Misbehavior
The temptation to talk about a defendant’s insurance coverage to cover its liability can be overwhelming. Resist it or pay dearly. Jesse Ventura’s lead lawyer skated way too far out over thin ice, referring to insurance coverage in his closing argument to the jury and, as a result, Ventura’s jury verdict is now void.
When is a Deal a Deal?
Every work day every business person is navigating (and, too often, sprinting) through an electronic thicket of email, voice-mail, text messages, and other digital data. Steven P. Katkov, a Minneapolis-based real estate lawyer at Cozen & O’Connor, recently highlighted an important issue raised by our light-speed communication based on a recent decision out of a […]
Sexy Price, Crazy Give-Away!!!
How about where a retailer sells an item, calling the price, a “sexy price” and a “crazy give-away” at $179.99? Can a consumer sue, claiming the price is not sexy, the price is not crazy, and the product is not being given away? I am generally pro-consumer and skeptical of the tactics of businesses, which […]
Major BigLaw Powerhouse, Jones Day, to Open Minneapolis Office
A new and ferocious competitor is entering the arena of Minneapolis-St. Paul Big Law: Jones Day. Multiple reliable sources have reported that a number of lawyers from Barnes & Thornburg‘s Minneapolis office will be opening up a Minneapolis branch of Jones Day. This is bad news for Barnes & Thornburg, which has reportedly lost three preeminent […]
Tales from the Trenches, Vol. 1, Issue No. 7
“Lawyering is 99% podiatry and 1% brain surgery,” my father (a lawyer) used to say. In other words, lawyering is for the most part dull, routine, and uncomplicated paper-pushing and posturing. Then, from time to time, it is critically important, intricate, and fascinating. Another analogy that occurs to me is trench warfare, monotonous, uneventful, boring, until, […]
Roasted Roaster: A Summer-Time PSA Brought to You by Minnesota Litigator
Notwithstanding fleeting, ad hoc respites, Minnesotans spend about five months of every year in uncomfortably cold weather, November 1 through April 1. (The wimps among us would tack on two or three weeks to either end of that, while the thicker-skinned might pare a similar number.) Either way, it is a fact that, when the […]
Administering Justice in Civil Litigation: How It’s Done and How It Should Be Done
Common practice in Minnesota civil litigation is for defendants’ answers to allegations made against them in civil complaints to look something like this (I paraphrase): Paragraph 1: I admit that I am who you say I am. Paragraph 2: I deny Paragraph 2-10 of your complaint. Paragraph 3: Paragraph 11 of your complaint quotes a […]
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (Particularly If You Want to Cut Loose a Sales Rep in Minnesota)
Imagine that Manufacturer A has been selling products of Company B for downstream sale to retailers for many years throughout the state (or some other defined region). Imagine that A & B’s agreement was for a one year term, automatically renewing unless and until either party gives 90 days advanced notice to the other of its intent […]
A Practice Pointer re Obtaining Robust Default Judgments
As all civil litigators know, a “default judgment” occurs when a plaintiff wins her case because the other side “defaults.” In other words, the defendant has notice of the lawsuit and does not bother to defend itself for one reason or another. It’s a pretty extreme outcome. One side loses the lawsuit without any finding that […]