MinnLawyer Blog

The St. Paul attorney for a man who pleaded guilty to murder in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, only to have the conviction overturned by the Supreme Court nine years later, was suspended for the practice of law for nonpayment of fees for the first few days of the trial that is underway in Ramsey County.

According to the Pioneer Press, Terrence Duggins was reinstated Tuesday when a check for his yearly fees was delivered to the Minnesota Supreme Court. But Duggins was late on his payments and already suspended when he took part in jury selection last Thursday and Friday.

The trial was on hold because on Monday Duggins asked Judge Edward Wilson for a one-week continuance, citing poor health. The judge granted the request and said he was not aware that Duggins was suspended when the trial began.

Duggins told a reporter that he thought he had mailed the check in already and that there was a grace period for nonpayment of fees.The judge said he is considering whether to declare a mistrial.

Duggins is representing Jerry Vang, 24. Vang pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2001 drive-by shooting death of a 15-year-old in St. Paul.

The act of civil disobedience by Hennepin County Judge Lloyd Zimmerman took another turn late yesterday.

Judge Lloyd Zimmerman

Zimmerman was reassigned to Family Court cases after he said in an email to the judicial branch that he would not hear cases at the courthouses in Brookdale, Southdale or Ridgedale until metal detectors were installed to screen visitors for weapons. Zimmerman called the reassignment an “act of retaliation” for asking for a safe courtroom. Hennepin County judges hear cases in suburban courtrooms as part of their regular schedule.

In an email sent last week Zimmerman said he “tired of driving to Brookdale, the courtroom everyone who knows agrees is the most likely place for a shooting or violence to occur, and not know whether I will be carried out in a body bag that day.”

His request was spurred by a shooting last month at a courthouse in Grand Marais that seriously injured a prosecutor and a potential witness in a sexual assault trial. The courthouse in Cook County did not have metal detectors.

He asked his colleagues on the Hennepin County bench to stand with him and refuse to take his assignments, but many of his colleagues received his request after they received an email from the district court looking for substitutes for Zimmerman’s assignments.

There was no word on if Zimmerman’s reassignment was permanent.

Law firm mergers more than doubled from 2010 to 2011 with predictions of more on the horizon in 2012.

Altman Weil, a firm that tracks law firm mergers, reported 60 mergers last year, up 54 percent from 2010. The firm expects to see more mergers, including those involving firms in U.S. and other countries, as the legal economy continues to rebound.

There were five combinations announced in 2011 that involved the acquisition of a law firm with 100 or more lawyers, including the merger of Minneapolis-based firm Faegre & Benson with Indianapolis-based firm Baker & Daniels that was announced in October.  Faegre Baker Daniels now has almost 800 attorneys.

The balance of 2011 law firm mergers and acquisitions included ten deals in which the acquired firm had between 21 and 100 lawyers, and 45 deals that involved the acquisition of small law firms with 20 or fewer lawyers.

The biggest deal of the year was the merger of 3,500-lawyer global law firm DLA Piper and its Australian affiliate DLA Phillips Fox, a 600-lawyer firm headquartered in Sydney. Ward Bower, a principal at Altman Weil said in a press release, that he expects to see more mergers in 2012 involving U.S., Canada and U.K. law firms.

More information on Altman Weil’s report can be found here.

Norman J. Baer, a shareholder at Anthony Ostlund Baer & Louwagie in Minneapolis, will be named the Chair of the Board of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity at the annual meeting in February. Habitat is an international organization dedicated to affordable housing.

The Twin Cities affiliate works throughout the seven county metro area with its home ownership, mortgage foreclosure prevention, and A Brush With Kindness programs.

Governor Mark Dayton is looking for an individual to serve as one of nine at-large members of the Commission on Judicial Selection. The 49-member commission reviews applications and makes recommendations for vacancies on District Court, the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals, and at the governor’s request, appellate courts.

At-large members consider vacancies within every judicial district as well as vacancies occurring during the term of a judge on the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals. A significant time commitment is expected of members. No compensation shall be received and no expenses incurred will be reimbursed.

Applicants should offer a letter of interest and a resume for consideration to the commission. The application deadline is Thursday, January 19, 2012.

Application materials should be sent to Tiffany Orth, Appointments Coordinator, Office of Governor Dayton, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Saint Paul, MN, 55155 or they can be emailed to tiffany.orth@state.mn.us.

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

Legal hiring in 2012 will be up. That’s the conclusion of a new surveyed published by Robert Half Legal, a national legal staffing firm.

According to the results of the quarterly report, 31 percent of the attorneys interviewed planned to add staff in the first quarter of the New Year, compared to 4 percent that planned to reduce staff. Robert Half interviewed 100 lawyers at firms of 20 or more employees and 100 corporate lawyers with more than 1,000 employees to compile the results.

Among the conclusions:

• The net 27 percent of lawyers expecting to hire is up three points from a net 24 percent increase in hiring activity projected last quarter. Lawyers interviewed plan to add an average of two full-time positions.

• Lawyers, paralegals and legal secretaries are the three most in-demand positions.

• Bankruptcy and foreclosure, litigation, and labor and employment law are the practice areas expected to see the most growth in the first quarter.

• 51 percent of lawyers said it is challenging to find skilled legal professionals, up two points from the previous quarter.

• 73 percent of lawyers are “somewhat” or “very confident” in their companies’ prospects for growth in the next three months; this represents a nine-point drop from the fourth quarter of 2011.

• 29 percent of lawyers identified bankruptcy and foreclosure as the area of law that will experience the most growth in the next three months. Litigation received 23 percent of the response, followed by labor and employment law at 12 percent.

For more on the report, visit www.roberthalf.us/per

Fifth Judicial District Judge John Rodenberg and Margaret Chutich, Assistant Dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, have been appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. They will fill vacancies created by the retirements of Judge Edward Toussaint and Judge Gordon Shumaker, who retired earlier this year.

Chutich previously served as deputy attorney general of the law enforcement section, executive counsel and assistant attorney general with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Before that, Chutich was an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Minnesota, and she clerked for 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diana E. Murphy, then a United States District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota. She received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1980, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1984.

Rodenberg , chambered in New Ulm, was appointed to the bench in 2000. He is a past vice-chair of the Minnesota Judicial Council. Prior to his appointment on the bench, he was an attorney with Berens, Rodenberg & O’Connor with an extensive family law practice, and a part-time assistant Brown County Attorney. Rodenberg is a 2010 recipient of the Rosalie E. Wahl Judicial Award of Excellence from the MSBA Public Law Section. He received a B.A. from Saint Olaf College in 1978 and a J.D. from Hamline University in 1981.

The man accused of shooting a Cook County prosecutor and a potential witness died this morning in a Duluth hospital.

Daniel Schlienz, 42, was being held at the St. Louis County jail in Duluth. He is accused of bringing a gun to the courthouse on Dec. 15 and opening fire after he was convicted in of a sexual assault charge. He wounded Cook County prosecutor Tim Scannell and witness Gregory Thompson in the shooting.

Schlienz was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, fourth-degree assault, possessing a gun within a courthouse, obstructing arrest and being a felon in possession of a firearm for the shooting.

The Commission on Judicial Selection announced today it is recommending four candidates to Governor Mark Dayton for consideration to fill the current vacancies created upon Judge Timothy K. Connell and Judge Jeffrey L. Flynn’s retirements in Minnesota’s Fifth Judicial District.

Gordon Moore – Moore serves as the Nobles County Attorney where he acts as chief prosecutor and legal advisor for the County. Previously, he was an Assistant City Attorney for Worthington and served as a Special Assistant Attorney in the Transportation and Employment divisions of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Moore is a member of the Nobles County Child Protection team and is a former chair of the Independent School District 518 Board of Directors.

Michael Trushenski – Trushenski currently serves as Assistant Martin County Attorney. He also works as an associate attorney with Viesselman & Barke, P.A. where he practices in family and bankruptcy law, personal injury, and probate matters. Trushenski is a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church and is president of the Martin County Law Library committee. He is also a past president of the Seventeenth District Bar Association.

Terry Vajgrt – Vajgrt is an Assistant Public Defender for the State of Minnesota. He also maintains a private practice focusing on criminal defense work. He previously worked as a partner in the law firm of Klosterbuer and Vajgrt and is a former Assistant Rock County Attorney. Vajgrt is a member of the Southwestern Mental Health Center Board of Directors and is chair of the Noble-Rock Community Corrections Advisory Board.

Christina Wietzema – Wietzema currently works as an Assistant Public Defender for the Fifth Judicial District where she represents indigent clients in all areas of public defense. Prior to this, she represented clients in family law, real property and criminal law as an associate attorney with Bernardy & Scholl, P.A. Wietzema is an active volunteer with St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

The Fifth Judicial District consists of Blue Earth, Brown, Cottonwood, Faribault, Jackson, Lincoln, Lyon, Martin, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Rock and Watonwan counties. An announcement of the appointment will be made following an interview process over the next few weeks.

Minnesota-based 3M Corp.  amended its complaint against a D.C.-based lobbying firm this week, accusing the company of black mail and conspiring to hurt the company overseas.

This fall, 3M was hit with a $1.3 million penalty in London for failing to develop an infectious disease kit in the U.S.

The company had now focused on the Lanny Davis lobbying firm and Porton Group, the company that developed the original technology. In its complaint filed Dec. 9, 3M accuses executives at Porton and Davis of trying to extort payments of $30 million to settle the lawsuit.

The complaint reads:

“Davis’s offices in Washington, D.C. served as the ‘nerve center’ of a campaign to coerce and intimidate 3M into paying the Boulter Defendants tens of millions of dollars under the guise of ‘settling’ a lawsuit then pending in the U.K. between the Boulter Defendants and 3M,” the complaint said.

Davis and the Porton executives denied 3M’s claims and called the attacks unfounded.