Gov. Mark Dayton

The Commission on Judicial Selection is recommending three candidates to Governor Mark Dayton for consideration to fill the current vacancy occurring in Minnesota’s Tenth Judicial District. This vacancy was created upon the retirement of the Honorable Donald J. Venne. The district court judgeship will be chambered at Buffalo in Wright County in the Tenth Judicial District.

Suzanne Bollman currently serves as an Assistant Sherburne County Attorney where she is responsible for criminal prosecution, reviewing search warrants, advising law enforcement on related issues and law enforcement training. Previously, she was an Assistant Stearns County Attorney, an Assistant Benton County Attorney and an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Saint Cloud. Bollman was involved with the Supreme Court’s Gender Fairness Implementation Committee. She was also a member of the City of Ramsey’s Public Safety Board and is a union negotiator and steward for AFSCME.

Walter Kaminsky is an attorney with Lindell and Lavoie, LLP, where he practices in personal injury litigation and criminal defense. Prior to this, he served as Sherburne County Attorney and was a partner with Terpstra, Black, Brandell, Kaminsky, & Hoffman. Kaminsky has been a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Professionalism Committee, Minnesota Association for Justice, and was a volunteer attorney with Central MN Legal Services. He is also a board member of the Guardian Angels Care Center’s Finance and Ethics Committee and is also a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Big Lake Chapter.

 Elizabeth Strand works as the Buffalo and Annandale Prosecuting Attorney where she is the sole provider of city prosecution services for Buffalo and Annandale. She also maintains a private family law practice where she represents clients in diverse family matters. Strand previously served as an Assistant Public Defender with the Tenth Judicial District and was an associate attorney with the Beaulier Law Office. She regularly volunteers with the Wright County Free Law Clinic and was a reference attorney at Chrysalis where she assisted low-income individuals with legal issues.

The Tenth Judicial District consists of Anoka, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine, Sherburne, Washington and Wright counties.

So far among judicial offices there are few surprises.

Lorie Skjerven Gildea filed paperwork to run for Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Her colleagues David Stras and Barry Anderson also submitted their paperwork on the first day.

On the Court of Appeals Renee Worke and Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks completed the necessary paperwork Tuesday.

On the District Court level, most of the incumbent judges have filed and are so far unopposed. There are a few races with no candidates yet, but the filing period continues through June 5.

In the Ninth District in Beltrami County both John Melbye and Diana Sweeney are registered to run. Melbye is the incumbent. Sweeney lives in Bemidji and is an assistant 9th Judicial District Public Defender. She was a finalist for a judge vacancy in the Ninth District in 2009.

The complete list of candidates is available on the SOS website.

Applications may be requested from Tiffany Orth, Appointments Coordinator, via e-mail at tiffany.orth@state.mn.us. A cover letter and resume should also be submitted with the application. Application materials are due by close of business, Monday, June 11, 2012. Interviews are scheduled to be held on Friday, June 29, 2012 at the Scott County Courthouse in Shakopee.

For inquiries concerning the application process, please contact Tiffany Orth at tiffany.orth@state.mn.us or at (651) 201-3413.

Ulanowski was admitted to practice law in 2001 and was suspended last year. He has been disciplined four times prior for violating the rules of professional conduct.

He is charged by the office with several counts. The first allegation is that he took about $1,400 in 2010 from a client to represent her in a bankruptcy. He failed to prepare the necessary paperwork in the case and did not return the fees.

In 2011 he again was hired to represent a client in a bankruptcy case. The client paid Ulanowski $800. Ulanowski was suspended from practicing shortly after and had not filed the necessary paperwork in the case. The client took him to conciliation court to get the money back and was awarded judgment. Ulanowski has not refunded the money.

In a second count, Ulanowski is alleged to have taken another retainer in a personal bankruptcy and failed to file a petition or refund the money. That client filed a conciliation court claim against Ulanowski, who didn’t show up at the hearing. The court awarded the client a judgment of $875, which Ulanowski had not paid, the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility reported.

Ulanowski is also charged with failure to cooperate with the office’s investigation into complaints made against him by former clients. He declined to provide written responses to the complaints made against him and several letters sent to his address in Brainerd were refused or returned to the office.

The office further alleges that he improperly destroyed old client files. Boxes and bags of legal documents were found in a dumpster behind Ulanowski’s law office in 2011 after his suspension. He has 20 days to respond to the complaint.

According to Ulanowski’s law firm’s website, he earned his law degree from the William Mitchell College of Law in 2001.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it denied the convicted frauster/ Ponzi scheme runner’s request to review his conviction. Petters was sentenced to 50 years in Leavenworth, Kan. prison after he was convicted of bilking investors out of money and running a $3.6 billion Ponzi scheme.

In pleadings to the U.S. Supreme Court for review, his attorneys argued that the trial judge improperly barred them from presenting evidence about a key prosecution witness and that Petters’ sentence was disproportionate to his counterparts.

Steve Smith

Minneapolis law firm Nichols Kaster is the latest to publically oppose the constitutional amendment that will be put to voters this fall to define marriage in the state between one man and one woman.

The firm sent out a press release this morning announcing the decision saying it cannot stand by and do nothing on the issue of the marriage amendment.

“The law firm of Nichols Kaster, PLLP, strongly and unequivocally opposes the proposed amendment, and encourages all Minnesotans to unite in opposition,” the firm said in the release.

Nichols Kaster joins Lockridge Grindal Nauen, Nilan Johnson Lewis, Halunen and Associates and about 20 other law firms in addition to the Minnesota State Bar Association and the Hennepin County Bar Association as organizations that have taken public stands against the proposed marriage amendment.

The proposed amendment would strike a blow to the individual liberties Minnesotans hold dear, the firm said, and enshrine inequality in “our highest law” would erode the state’s tradition of holding each citizen as equal in rights, dignity and protection under the law. The choice of whom we love, whom we care about and whom we marry is “deeply personal, bounded only by our own values and conscience.”

“As attorneys at Nichols Kaster we feel a unique obligation to speak out strongly and forcefully in opposition to the proposed amendment limiting the marriage rights of Minnesotans,” said Steven Andrew Smith, one of the firm’s partners. “As we have learned from our clients over many years of practice, discrimination is not a technical legal concept; rather, it is a deeply felt moral wrong, one which at once demeans the perpetrator, the victim, and all who live in its shadow. We cannot stand by and do nothing as anti-marriage forces seek to write such discrimination into our founding charter.”

Helen Meyer

She was appointed by Gov. Jesse Ventura in 2002 and was twice re-elected to six year terms. Before her appointment she worked for 20 years as a litigator and mediator and also served on the Commission on Judicial Selection where she made recommendations on the appointments of more than 60 judges.

“I will miss my colleagues and the challenging work of the Court, but I look forward to returning to the life of a private citizen,” Meyer said in a release announcing her decision. “Over my 10 years as a member of the Supreme Court and 20 years as a trial lawyer, I have developed a great respect for the people who work in the judicial branch.”

Meyer was born and raised in St. Joseph, Minnesota, on a dairy farm. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in social work and received her law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. Meyer has served as chair of both the Supreme Court’s Chemical Dependency Task Force and the Minnesota Judicial Council’s Workgroup on Legal Representation of Parents in Child Protection Cases. She is the Court’s liaison to the Judicial Branch’s Children’s Justice Initiative, a member of the State Court Administrator’s CJI Advisory Committee, and a member of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

“Justice Helen Meyer has made a significant and lasting contribution to the administration of justice in Minnesota through her 10 years of dedicated service on the Supreme Court,” said Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie S. Gildea. “We will miss her, and we are grateful for the opportunity we had to serve with such an outstanding jurist and a good and kind person. We wish Justice Meyer all the best.”

In a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton announcing her resignation, Meyer said:

“Our judges and court staff are an extraordinarily talented and dedicated group of people. With the support of the other branches of government and the public, our judges and court staff have built a judicial system that is very highly regarded for the effective delivery of justice for all. At a time when the public’s trust and confidence in all institutions is shaken, the court system in Minnesota stands as a beacon of hope to our citizens.”

Dayton said he will ask the Minnesota Commission on Judicial Selection to assist in soliciting candidates, evaluating applicants and recommending a nominee to the governor for the appointment of the next Supreme Court justice.

First, she is charged with hitting a police officer after a traffic accident in St. Paul in 2011. After getting into a car accident at a St. Paul bar, she is accused by police of kicking and swearing at an officer who tried to arrest her. She is charged with obstructing legal process and refusing to take an alcohol breath test. She was licensed to practice in 2008 and according to her LinkedIn profile is a solo and does criminal defense and family law.

This week the OLPR filed a disciplinary petition against Toberman for failing to work on a client’s matter and not disclosing a conflict of interest. According to the petition, she was hired by both parties in a divorce dispute in 2009 for the flat fee of $1,000. She did not disclose the risks to the parties and also told them she would act as a qualified neutral in the case even though she was not listed on the official roster of qualified neutrals.

The husband eventually fired her when she missed several court deadlines in the case and asked for the file back which was not returned. When the OLPR investigated the matter, Toberman failed to respond to requests for information and said through her attorney she was entering an alcohol treatment program. The OLPR later learned she did not enter a treatment program.

“It is ironic that Minnesota Voters Alliance portrays itself as an advocacy organization for voter integrity, yet it appears to lack integrity in its fundraising efforts by failing to follow the law and register as a charitable organization,” said Chuck Samuelson, Executive Director of the ACLU-MN, in the release.

Minnesota Voters Alliance began fundraising in 2011.  On November 10, 2011, MVA told supporters in an emailed solicitation that it had raised $27,000 and asked for additional donor help to reach $45,000 for an elections lawsuit.  Over a year later, MVA again solicited potential donors on January 19, 2012.  On February 28, 2012, MVA’s attorneys filed a case against the State to end Election Day Registration.  There is no record of MVA’s registration with the Minnesota Attorney’s General Office during this period of revenue solicitation, ACLU-MN alleged.