MinnLawyer Blog

I have a modest proposal for resolving whether Norm Coleman or Al Franken should represent our fair state in the U.S. Senate for the next six years — a coin toss. Let me explain.
First of all, all of this back and forth about the relevance of the DFL ties of Secretary of State Mark [...]

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The Minnesota State Bar Association is making its voice heard on the controversy that came to light this summer over the hiring practices by the Department of Justice.
In a recent letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, MSBA president Michael Ford (at right) notes that the organization recently passed a resolution affirming its long-standing support [...]

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Delivering the keynote address at Dorsey & Whitney ’s 19th annual corporate counsel symposium earlier today, author and legendary journalist Bob Woodward cracked a couple of jokes and shared his thoughts on President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. The following clip is an excerpt of Woodward’s speech, delivered at the [...]

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Today Dorsey & Whitney’s is having its annual Corporate Counsel Symposium, which is a good way to keep up on some of the major corporate law issues. Dorsey also traditionally has some prominent keynote speakers at the event’s luncheon. Two years ago it was former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; last year it was [...]

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Congratulations are due to St. Paul attorney Hugh Markley, who was honored last weekend by the Ramsey County Bar Association for more than three decades of pro bono work on behalf of Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services.
Markley received the Ramsey County Bar Association’s 2008 Pro Bono Award at the recent Bench & Bar Benefit in [...]

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A sharp-eyed reader noting our headline that said that this year’s appellate races offered few surprises wrote to remind me about Supreme Court races in other states. In a Mississippi race that shows where John Grisham gets his ideas, three justices running for second, eight-year terms lost: Chief Justice Jim Smith lost to Jim Kitchens, [...]

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As has been reported elsewhere, the recount of the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is only the second recount of statewide election results in Minnesota since the 1962 gubernatorial race. The other recount was, of course, just a couple of months ago — and that came in a judicial election.
As loyal readers [...]

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The Minnesota Court of Appeals celebrated its 25th anniversary yesterday.

At an all-day symposium commemorating the event — held at William Mitchell College of Law — Judge Harriet Lansing (at right) gave a really nice lunchtime address, aptly titled “The Minnesota Court of Appeals: Twenty-five years of Doing Minnesota Justice.”
Lansing explained that there was a [...]

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The Minnesota Lawyer website has posted its judicial election wrap up story. Click here to see it.
All-in-all the election went pretty smoothly. Unlike the primary, there were no recounts necessary — which is probably for the best given that the Secretary of State’s Office is pretty busy with that whole Coleman/Franken recount thing. It’s an [...]

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We at Minnesota Lawyer were interested in how members of the general public decide whom to cast their ballot for in judicial elections, so we sent intrepid associate editor Barbara Jones — along with our one-man video crew — on the road to find out. They stopped off at a polling place in downtown Minneapolis [...]

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