Q&A: Schnell steps up pandemic early releases

Kevin Featherly May 1, 2020

Since expediting work releases to help with social distancing in the state’s prisons, Paul Schnell’s Corrections Department has allow 26 inmates with up to 90 days remaining on their prisons terms to leave early. In this photo, Schnell appears at a Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission hearing in February 2019. (File photo: Kevin Featherly)

Lino Lakes joins list of prisons with COVID cases.

Capitol Retort: Budget cuts, direct injection, Great MN Stay Apart

Kevin Featherly April 30, 2020

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens as President Donald Trump speaks Thursday in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (AP photo)

Our review of issues in state and national news, with a rotating cast of political people in the know.

Breaking the Ice: Affecting corporate behavior drives attorney’s practice

Todd Nelson April 29, 2020

June Hoidal primarily serves as outside counsel to government entities that are plaintiffs in complex litigation. (Submitted photo)

June Hoidal, partner at Zimmerman Reed, points to a case resulting in a favorable U.S. Supreme Court ruling as a career highlight.

In the Hopper: Public Safety request; hemp hurdle in the House

Kevin Featherly April 24, 2020

Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington pitched the House Public Safety committee his department’s supplemental budget request on April 16. (Image courtesy of House Public Information Services)

In the Hopper is a summary of Minnesota legislation of interest to the legal community.

Capitol Retort: Peaking early; executive power; ‘one good thing’

Kevin Featherly April 23, 2020

Medical workers administer drive-up COVID-19 tests April 18 outside the Sanford Worthington Clinic in Worthington, Minnesota. The state has sent a team to ensure safe conditions in the southwestern Minnesota city, where multiple people have tested positive at a meatpacking plant. (Star Tribune via AP)

The pressure to reboot an economy that has flat-lined is understandable. But how did Rep. Cal Bahr’s statement strike your ears?

Breaking the Ice: Complexity, changes keep health care practice fresh

Todd Nelson April 22, 2020

As co-chair of Fox Rothschild’s pro-bono committee, Archana Nath oversees pro bono cases in the Midwest and on the West Coast. (File photo)

Archana Nath, partner in Fox Rothschild’s Minneapolis office, likes the complexity of health care regulations.

In the Hopper: Workers’ comp; remote marriage; supplemental budget

Kevin Featherly April 17, 2020

Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman wears a face mask at her desk as lawmakers meet April 7 to pass a bill to assure that first responders and medical workers will qualify for workers compensation if they get sick with COVID-19 and won't have to prove they contracted the disease on the job. (AP photo: Jim Mone)

First responders infected with COVID-19 need not prove that their illness resulted from the job, now that a bill naming the conditional as presumptively work-related has passed into law.

Capitol Retort: Flu v. COVID; supplemental budget; Zooming

Kevin Featherly April 16, 2020

Patients and medical workers wear personal protective equipment because of COVID-19 concerns April 13 outside the emergency room at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. (AP photo: John Minchillo)

John Hinderaker, in a blog post, argues that COVID-19 deaths are “fractions of a normal flu season” and that coronavirus deaths could one day equal flu numbers, which were “barely a news story.” Is he right?

Breaking the Ice: Creative approach informs products liability practice

Todd Nelson April 15, 2020

Gerardo “Jerry” Alcazar uses creativity to connect with jurors in representing Fortune 500 clients in his national products liability defense practice at Blackwell Burke.

Capitol Retort: Backup player; prison outbreak; quarantine reads

Kevin Featherly April 9, 2020

In this March 30, 2020 photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, holds a brief news conference March 30 with Rear Adm. John B. Mustin as the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital ship with a 1,000 bed-capacity, pulls into Pier 90 in New York. Americans give high marks to state and local governments for their handling of the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic that has swiftly remade everyday life. (AP photo: Kathy Willens)

The president refers to the federal government as a “backup” to states. What do you think about the how he’s handling things?

Minnesota Lawyer

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