Minnesota Lawyer articles from November 2003

Minnesota Lawyer archives from November 2003

Commentary: When client property is lost or misplaced.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility Clients often entrust lawyers with all kinds of documents, from pay stubs to abstracts to birth certificates. Original documents can be time-consuming and expensive for clients to...

Substituting alternate juror not erroneous.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones A Faribault County District Court judge did not err in replacing a juror in a criminal case with an alternate at a time when the defendant was not physically present in the courtroom where the defense counsel had...

Interview with MN Supreme Court Justice Page.(Interview)
November 3, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Currently commemorating his 10th year on the Supreme Court bench, Justice Alan C. Page is the court's most senior justice. The story of Page's rise to the bench is a well-known one. While playing professional football...

Supreme Court orders evidentiary hearing in postconviction relief case.(Brief Article)
November 3, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter An evidentiary hearing has been ordered in a petition for postconviction relief filed by one of the men convicted of homicide in the highly publicized 1992 murder of Minneapolis policeman Jerry Haaf....

Law schools closely monitor suit over the Solomon Amendment.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Local law schools are closely monitoring a lawsuit against the Department of Defense filed by an organization of 800 law professors from 160 law schools. The organization challenges what it calls the military's...

Auto tort cases can be tough when fault shared.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Last month, a Ramsey County District Court jury awarded $2.7 million to the family of a 29-year-old woman who was killed when the car in which she was a passenger in crashed into a semi-tractor trailer. Jurors...

Commentary: Statistics on court reporters' mandatory transcripts disputed.(Letter to the Editor)
November 3, 2003... Byline: Letter to the Editor To the editor: As the Teamsters Local 320 Business Agent representing Official Court Reporters, I am writing in response to the article on Mandatory Transcripts in the October 20, 2003, edition of Minnesota...

MN Assn. of Black Lawyers's annual Scholarship Gala planned.(Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers )(Brief Article)
November 3, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter The Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers (MABL) will hold its annual Scholarship Gala at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 15, at Windows on Minnesota in the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis. With the...

Commentary: Appellate actions attract anglers' anger and approval.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Marshall Tanick Those who enjoy fishing know that the activity has its highs and lows. Anglers also experience enjoyment and exasperation in the law. The duality was reflected in a pair of recent rulings of the federal and state...

MN American Indian Bar Assn. elects officers.(Minnesota American Indian Bar Association )(Brief Article)
November 3, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Members of the Minnesota American Indian Bar Association (MAIBA) have elected Lenor A. Scheffler as president of the 13-year-old organization, and elected several members to its board of directors....

Consumer fraud claim vs. car dealer dismissed.
November 3, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Where alleged oral representations by a car dealership representative contradicted unambiguous language in a sales contract, reliance on the oral representations was unjustifiable and could not form a basis for a...

Federal and state courts in Minnesota consider contentious consent cases.
November 10, 2003... Byline: Marshall Tanick One of the few, but most frequently litigated, exceptions to the Fourth Amendment restrictions imposed on law enforcement officers from conducting a search is the concept of consent. The cases in which the concept...

Steven Keeva, asst. editor of the American Bar Assn. Journal, on life, law and lawyer satisfaction.
November 10, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Steven Keeva, assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal, spoke with Minnesota Lawyer associate editor Barbara L. Jones when he was in the Twin Cities for a recent event at Hamline University School of Law. * * * Do...

Legal author provides his reflections at Hamline University.
November 10, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Author and legal editor Steven Keeva recently visited Minnesota and delivered remarks as part of Hamline University School of Law's "Reflecting on Law as a Vocation" series. Keeva, the assistant managing editor of the...

Res Ipsa Loquitur holds luncheon at Hamline University School of Law.(Brief Article)
November 10, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Res Ipsa Loquitur and Hamline University School of Law presented a luncheon program "Learning From and Transcending Disaster: Making Lemonade Out of Life's Lemons" at the university last week....

Minneapolis lawyers honored for Legal Aid leadership.
November 10, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Minneapolis attorneys John Eisberg and Terry Wade, partners with the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, will each receive the 2003 21st Century Leadership Award, presented by the Campaign...

MN Court of Appeals rules teachers cannot recover legal fees.(Minnesota)
November 10, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Where two school district employees acted in bad faith in assigning insurance benefits granted to them by their employer, they were not entitled to recover attorney fees for successfully defending themselves in a...

MN Supreme Court rules malpractice claim against attorney not time-barred.(Minnesota)
November 10, 2003... Byline: Mark Cohen A legal malpractice claim against a lawyer was not time-barred where the plaintiff's criminal conviction was vacated on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel less than six years before the malpractice suit was...

MN Court of Appeals rules retroactive modification of child support not erroneous.(Minnesota)
November 10, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones A Hennepin County District Court judge did not commit an abuse of discretion in suspending a father's child-support obligation retroactively to the date the father began receiving public assistance, even though the...

MN Supreme Court eliminates mandatory transcript rule.(Minnesota)
November 10, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore The Minnesota Supreme Court has eliminated the mandatory transcript requirement in felony and gross misdemeanor guilty plea and sentencing hearings. The purpose of the mandatory transcript rules can be met by...

MN Legal Briefs November 17, 2003.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P has announced that its Minneapolis office has moved to the IDS Center effective Nov. 1, 2003, to accommodate expansion of the office. *** Hansen, Dordell, Bradt,...

Commentary: Snowmobilers litigate as winter weather approaches.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Marshall H. Tanick The first snowfall of the winter, actually mid-fall, was gleefully greeted by Minnesota's many snowmobilers. The falling flakes were accompanied by a pair of rulings from the federal and state appellate...

Public defenders hang banner to honor former chief.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Last month, the Hennepin County Public Defender's Office honored former chief William Kennedy, who died last August, and commemorated the 40th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright in a ceremony at the Hennepin County...

Walter Mondale speaks to Hamline law school students.(Brief Article)
November 17, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Walter F. Mondale, former Vice-President and U.S. senator from Minnesota, spoke last week at the inaugural event of "Vocation & Leadership," a new program at Hamline University School of Law. ...

Judge won't dismiss suit over Solomon Amendment.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter A federal judge in Newark, N.J., has rejected a Defense Department bid to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the government from withholding financial aid to colleges that refuse to allow...

Volunteer Lawyers Network director a longtime practitioner, volunteer.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Although Bradley C. Thorsen has been a ubiquitous volunteer in the Minnesota legal community, for the last 16 years he has made his living as a sole practitioner in Minneapolis. Last summer Thorsen became the...

Court to decide if wrongful conception case can proceed.
November 17, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore The Minnesota Supreme Court is grappling with whether to allow a claim for wrongful conception to proceed against three doctors who allegedly failed to diagnose and inform a woman that she was a carrier of a harmful...

Hamline Univ. hosts the Ho Chunk high court.(university)
November 17, 2003... Byline: Mark Cohen Hamline University School of Law recently hosted an oral argument unlike any the school had hosted before. On Friday evening, Nov. 7, the Supreme Court of the Ho Chunk Nation heard arguments in a packed Annette K. Levine...

Lawyer challenges two-credit anti-bias requirement.(Elliot Rothenberg)
November 17, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Threatened with an involuntary restriction on his law license, Minneapolis lawyer Elliot Rothenberg has asked the state Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional the continuing legal education (CLE) rule that...

Commentary: Are fee-based programs next Wall Street debacle?
November 17, 2003... Byline: James Eccleston Brokerage firms charge customers either commissions or fees (as a percentage of account value). As a result, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) has issued a notice to brokerage firms that...

MN Legal Briefs November 24, 2003.(Minnesota)
November 24, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Larkin Hoffman has announced that Charles Modell, the chair of the firm's franchise practice group, has been re-elected to a second term on the governing committee of the American Bar Association's...

Roundtable held on race and justice in state's courts.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter The Minnesota Supreme Court, the Minneapolis Urban League, the Council on Black Minnesotans and Insight News recently co-sponsored a public policy roundtable on efforts to eliminate racial bias in the...

Choosing the right option in juvenile certification cases.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones Two tragic murders allegedly committed by juveniles recently brought to the forefront again the issue of how to prosecute youngsters who allegedly commit serious crimes. Minnesota has three options for asserting...

Court reverses nonsupport of child charge.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Before charging a father with nonsupport of a child, the state should have attempted to obtain a court order holding him in contempt for failing to pay support during the time period specified in the complaint, the...

The role of human capital in corporate governance.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Mark Cohen As the news broke about financial improprieties at Enron and other major companies over the last couple of years, the focus of the debate on corporate governance has been on the financial side of the business. However,...

Commentary: Cases show hazards and harbors of fee sanctions.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Marshall Tanick Efforts to obtain attorney fee sanctions against adverse litigants occurs more frequently in state court than federal court proceedings. Both judicial systems have comparable mechanisms for seeking fee...

Attorneys told how to master the art of legal argument.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Michelle Lore Legal argument is an art, according to presenters at a recent continuing legal education seminar (CLE). "The Art of Legal Argument," sponsored by the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA), was held Nov. 12 in...

Past Hennepin County Bar Assn. leaders gather at Crowne Plaza for luncheon.(Brief Article)
November 24, 2003... Byline: Minnesota Lawyer Staff Reporter Twenty-four past presidents of the Hennepin County Bar Association (HCBA) returned to the facilities of their old private membership club at the Crowne Plaza Northstar last week for a luncheon. ...

Consecutive sentencing statute found to be invalid.
November 24, 2003... Byline: Barbara Jones A statute imposing consecutive sentences of one year each for gross misdemeanor convictions is unconstitutional because it subjects nonfelony defendants to felony-like sentences while only providing six-person juries,...