MinnLawyer Blog

The race for the judicial seat held by Hennepin County District Court Chief Judge James Swenson is heating up in these final 10 days of the election season. Swenson is facing a challenge from longtime Hennepin County referee Thomas Haeg. Yesterday, we received a press release from the folks over at Haeg’s campaign, notifying us [...]

Read Full Post »

Minnesota Lawyer just posted an interesting story from our upcoming issue on the justice system’s efforts to deal with post traumatic stress syndrome in criminal cases involving veterans. As one source puts it in the article, combat veterans can become “addicted to chaos” and have trouble readjusting to society when they return. It doesn’t seem [...]

Read Full Post »

Let’s put aside all the partisan bickering for a moment and focus on an issue that tugs on the heartstrings of all Americans: stress toy abuse. That’s right, Westlaw just released another brilliant commercial for its legal research services. Like before, the Sally Struthers-esque spoof offers plenty of hilarious stress toy carnage. But on a [...]

Read Full Post »

Justice Paul Anderson is the second most senior of the seven Minnesota Supreme Court justices. He has served on the state high court since 1994. Previously, he was chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and, prior to that, an attorney in private practice. His challenger in the upcoming election is Tim Tingelstad, a [...]

Read Full Post »

There’s an interesting article in the PiPress today involving the judicial race between Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea and her challenger, Hennepin County District Court Judge Deborah Hedlund. According to the press report, the owner of a sign-making company sent Hedlund an e-mail with the subject line, “Can Muslims Be Good Americans?” The [...]

Read Full Post »

A sharp-eyed reader pointed out to us recently that one of our 2006 Attorneys of the Year was David E. Baer, in-house counsel for Petters Group Worldwide. “Is he in any trouble?” the reader wanted to know. Not at the moment, but Baer did resign from the board of Petters-owned Sun Country Airlines at the [...]

Read Full Post »

Hennepin County District Court Judge Deborah Hedlund’s statement on her Facebook page that her opponent, Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea, has canceled debate appearances with her six times is itself debatable, according to Gildea’s campaign. As we blogged before, Hedlund has an entry on her Facebook page asserting that Gildea is “trying to get [her] opponent [...]

Read Full Post »

Continuing with our video series for the appellate court races, today we bring you Court of Appeals Judge Terri Stoneburner. Stoneburner, who has served on the appellate bench for eight years, faces a challenge from International Falls attorney Dan Griffith, who has run unsuccessfully for a judgeship twice before. Stoneburner’s prior experience includes 10 years [...]

Read Full Post »

Hearings on the 35W bridge collapse claims are underway. Minneapolis attorney Susan Holden, head of the special master panel, said that 179 claims have been filed and 70 of those will be heard by the full panel. Nine claimants have waived hearings, leaving 100 cases to be heard among the three special masters, although a [...]

Read Full Post »

Being something of a fan of the First Amendment (it’s one of my favorite amendments, in fact), I was somewhat taken aback by Rep. Michele Bachmann’s remark that she is concerned that Barack Obama may have “anti-American views.” And, of course, her calling on the media to investigate her fellow members of Congress to determine [...]

Read Full Post »