MinnLawyer blog

We were interested to see that when Politics in Minnesota posted its list of the top contributors to the DFL and Republican House caucuses, Faegre & Benson’s PAC, with a contribution, of $25,000 was listed as tied for the #2 spot on the Republican list.

The firm’s PAC also donated $34,500 to the Dems,  but that only got them to #13 on the DFL top contributor list, according to PIM’s Steve Perry. DFL chairman Brian Melendez is a principle at Faegre, so maybe that has something to do with the Dems getting a little more love from Faegre. On the other hand, conservative blogger/attorney John Hinderaker also is a principal at Faegre, so there goes that theory.

Earlier this year, Faegre laid off about 30 associates due to the bad economy, which has caused transactional work to dry up all over. The amount that the firm spent on political contributions would have paid for half of a first-year associate, but then again, what would one do with half a first-year associate?

By the way, the top individual contributor to the DFL House Caucus was an attorney — Vance Opperman — who gave $56,500. St. Paul attorney Jeffrey Anderson gave $25,000 to the DFL House Caucus, placing him third on that list. None of the top individual contributors to the House Republican Caucus was an attorney.

Effective July 1, Lindquist & Vennum, joined the growing ranks of big Minneapolis law firms that have scaled back associate pay. Lindquist pared back associate compensation by 10 percent, according to managing partner Daryle Uphoff. Additionally, the firm delayed the starting date of its incoming class of new associates to January 2010.

Michael Songsteng (Photo: Bill Klotz)

Leaving no stone unturned in my unceasing effort to bring you vital news of the Minneapolis legal community, I undertook the tough task of checking out One Man Minneapolis, which is a quest to find “the man who represents the best of the Twin Cities from the perspectives of community involvement, personality, intelligence, and fitness.” Since all the 20 finalists are unbelievably handsome, it was boring to go through all the profiles looking for lawyers but I did it. There are three lawyers in the group: Blake Iverson, Iverson Law Group; Michael Songsteng, Integreon; and Emmerson H. Ward, Leonard Street and Dienard.

You can vote for your favorite on the website.Five finalists will be chosen and announced at the Pantages Theater on Saturday, July 18. According to the website, “The final five will participate in a live competition involving fashion, pop culture, informal interviews, and fun! A panel of seven judges – and you, seated in the audience – will select the ultimate winner at the event.” Tickets are available at the website for $29 general admission and $49 VIP, which gets you a gift bag and a photo with Mr. One Man.

As far as I know, only Sonsteng has mounted a media campaign, with a news release pledging to donate his $5,000 winnings to charity.  But you can see the other guys with a simple click.

Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Richard Posner has written nearly 40 books on jurisprudence, legal philosophy and several other erudite topics. But, despite his stellar reputation and credentials, the legendary jurist still apparently has a thing or two to learn about Minnesota law schools.

An alert reader pointed out to me that, in an opinion issued earlier today, Posner made a mistake in referring to the number of law schools in our state. The case — Wiesmueller v. Kosobucki — involved a challenge to Wisconsin’s bar admission rule exempting grads of Wisconsin’s two law schools from having to take the state’s bar exam in order to be licensed in Wisconsin. Some grads of those pernicious out-of-state law schools cried foul, challenging this “diploma privilege” policy as discriminatory against out-of-staters. They, unlike Wisconsin law grads, would have to practice elsewhere long enough to waive in or spend the time and effort of preparing for and taking the Dairy State’s bar, they pointed out.

The District Court judge threw out their suit, finding that they had failed to state a claim. But, in an opinion authored by Posner, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit reinstated the lawsuit. The out-of-state law grads should be allowed to make their case, the panel found.

Making the point that Wisconsin schools don’t offer any special instruction in the intricacies of Wisconsin law, Posner wrote:

“Wisconsin law is no greater part of the curriculum of the Marquette and Madison law schools than it is of the law schools of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Virginia, the University of Texas, Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Northern Illinois (which happens to be within a stone’s throw of Wisconsin, as are the three law schools in Minneapolis).”

What’s readily apparent to us and our astute reader is that Posner got the number of law schools here wrong. There are four law schools in Minnesota (which is the figure he most likely meant to use), two of which are in Minneapolis (the U of M and St. Thomas).

Admittedly, three is a good compromise figure between two and four. Posner’s miscue puts me in mind of the counting sequence for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.

“First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”

(Click here for the YouTube video of the hilarious Holy Hand Grenade scene, a personal favorite.)

However, as far as Minnesota law schools go, the number three represents nothing but the number of law schools in Minnesota prior to 2001, when the University of St. Thomas School of Law became the state’s fourth.

Perhaps this is Posner’s way of agreeing with those who maintain we have too many law schools here in the Land of 10,000 Lawyers, err … Lakes.

UPDATE (7/10):  The opinion has been removed from the 7th Circuit’s website and we’re told is in the process of being corrected.

Feeling bogged down by student loan debt? It could be worse. Today we present the case of one Mark Allen Jesperson, a Minnesota lawyer who had what no doubt was one of the worst days in his life yesterday.

Jesperson had student debt liabilities totaling $362,218 at the time of his bankruptcy trial in February 2007.  (The reasons the debt was high are not spelled out, but undoubtedly included the fact that it took him 11 years to graduate college before he got his B.A. from the University of Minnesota-Duluth). Jesperson’s condition at the time of the bankruptcy, described by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision it released yesterday, was thus: He was 43 years old; unmarried, but with two children to support by two different mothers; working a temp job; and living in his brother’s basement.

The weighty loans coupled with his no-frills lifestyle seems to have a struck a chord with the Minnesota bankruptcy judge, who awarded him the Holy Grail of student loan debt , a hardship discharge. The Minnesota federal District Court judge affirmed. One can only imagine how relieved Jesperson was to have the weight of that massive debt off him. But unfortunately the time of Jesperson’s joy — much like the money that financed his entire education — was only borrowed. Educational Credit Management Corp. appealed, and, yesterday, a divided 8th Circuit panel opted to overturn the ruling granting the hardship discharge and thereby reinstate the full balance of the loans.

Writing for the panel, Chief Judge James B. Loken said there was no hardship here because the debtor could always enter into a 25-year plan to repay the loans under the U.S. Department of Education’s Income Contingent Repayment Plan. (At the end of such a plan, any unpaid balance remaining would be wiped clean.) Thus, rather than getting a fresh start now, Jesperson will have to wait until he is 70. Interestingly, Loken’s opinion says that the bankruptcy and district court judges should not have imputed rent to Jesperson in calculating his living expenses. “A debtor making a good faith effort to repay loans would continue to live with his brother to save money,” the judge wrote. (Hmm. We hope it is at least a finished basement.)

Admitting that Jesperson, who has not attempted to repay his loans and wound up quitting several law jobs after short periods, doesn’t present the most sympathetic of pictures, Judge Kermit E. Bye, writing in dissent, said that Jesperson nonetheless presented a case of hardship. Not discharging the debt in effect relegates Jesperson and his two children to a life punctuated by constant financial crisis and impoverishment, Bye said.

Nye also took issue with the calculation of Jesperson’s expenses, which did not include rent, medical or dental expenses or a retirement plan. “I reject the majority’s assertion that Jesperson failed to demonstrate good faith because he aspired to live somewhere other than his brother’s basement,” the judge wrote.

We’ve reported a fair amount here about the large- to mid-sized Minnesota law firm layoffs. We’ve also heard through the grapevine that there have been small firm layoffs, but most of those have fallen below the radar screen.

Here’s a new twist in the small-firm category: Alanna Moravetz, the director of career and professional development for the University of St. Thomas School of Law, recently told me that a few students have gotten jobs at small firms, only to be laid off within a month or two of starting.

With a small firm, something like that can happen in a variety of ways. For example, the firm may find out one of its big clients has pulled out or gone under. Or a big case that the firm anticipated would keep everyone busy for six months suddenly settles. While small firms don’t suffer from the heavy overhead that weighs down big firms, their very lightness can make them highly susceptible to the winds of the economy.

In such situations, one has to feel both for the firm, which finds itself in the embarrassing position of having to layoff someone it has just hired, and the affected individuals, who go from the promised land of having secured lawyer employment to the Ninth Circle of Dante’s hell faster than you can say lickety split.

Some would say that, however brief, at least they had a paying job at a law firm. Others may be more of the mind that it is worse to finally land a job and then have the rug pulled out from under you. I leave it to you to decide: Is it better to have lawed and lost than never to have lawed at all?

An article in the Legal Intelligencer blog has a suggestion for out-of-work or underworked lawyers who are looking for a way to stay busy and get their name out there: Write.

As one who is constantly looking for fresh, interesting story ideas, I can say it’s a godsend when I can find an articulate voice of authority to contribute an article on a subject that’s within his or her area of expertise. Newspapers, magazines, online publications and newsletters — just to name a few outlets — love getting free content to publish, and you’re going to love seeing your name in print and having the opportunity to let the world know that you know your stuff.

So start brainstorming, and you’ll find that there’s a world of outlets for your writing if you dig for it.

We got an interesting comment to our article on Dorsey & Whitney and some other local firms lowering associate salaries by 10 percent as a result of the economic downturn (click here for list of firm cutbacks). Apparently not all of the associates whose salaries are being cut buy the idea that everyone at their firms is shouldering the pain equally. Here’s the comment:

I’m an associate at a comparable firm. My salary has been reduced, but my billing rate was increased by 10% this year. It’s funny how these firms spin salary cuts as a reaction to client demands. If that were the case, perhaps firms would consider cutting partner comp, considering it is often HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars higher than associates’ comp.

Michael Jackson’s memorial service in Los Angeles today will be attended by thousands. The pop singer’s life touched many, including a local lawyer, Marshall Tanick,  who once represented a client whom the King of Pop chose to take on. Tanick sent the following e-mail sum up of the experience:

“Back in the early 1980’s, I represented a woman who sold novelty merchandise of various sorts. She had been a buyer with one of the large retailers in town and knew the field pretty well. She came up with an idea to sell various items, t-shirts, key chains, etc., using names of then-popular (very popular) song titles of Michael Jackson: ‘Beat It!’; ‘Thriller’; ‘Billie Jean’; and the like. She started selling them at various county fairs during the summer of 1982 and was fairly successful. She had plans to do so at the State Fair as well.

“That’s where Michael intervened, or more precisely, his agents. They contacted her (and me) and maintained that she must cease and desist from any such commercial use (or face a lawsuit). They even said that Michael was deeply offended and taking a personal interest in this matter. My client’s first reaction was to welcome litigation because it might attract publicity and help boost sales of the products. For my part, the litigation would have been interesting because I looked forward to the opportunity to depose the King of Pop.

“But after a bit of legal research, I learned that song titles could not be copyrighted. Therefore, there was no basis for the cease and desist letter and I so informed Jackson’s posse. As long as she did not use his name, picture, or other likeness, she was free to do so, which I communicated to the agents.

“Basically, we told the Jackson folks to ‘Beat it!’ We did not think that they would back off, and we expected litigation, which would have been a real ‘Thriller.’ But we never heard back from them.

“Jackson did not take any further action and my client went about her merry way, selling her items at a good profit over a short period of time while Jackson was very ‘hot,’ although they faded when he did.

“I never got to meet Michael, or litigate with him, but that is my ‘Michael Moment.’”

Minnesota Lawyer is a nonpartisan newspaper, so our posts here are fairly apolitical. Yet there are certain topics you cannot broach without pressing somebody’s political hot button. A case in point is Coleman v. Franken. Last week I put up a pretty innocuous post dissecting some of the legalities of the Minnesota Supreme Court decision, and received the following “response” comment:

You are just as complicate in the Voter Fraud against Norm Coleman, as Mark Ritchie & ACORN is, by not denouncing the fraud that went on with dead voters, fradulant [sic] ballots, & Ritchie stacking the State Canvassaing [sic] Board against Coeman [sic], all the other garbage that transpired.

But, you got your liberal candidate, didn’t you. A joke & embarrassament [sic] to the state of Minnesota. You must be proud of yourselves.

Hmmm. Now I could point out the fact that Coleman’s legal team acknowledged the fairness of the recount process and disclaimed any assertions of fraud in how the tallies were handled, but I don’t suspect there is anything I could say that would placate the commenter. The one part of the comment that intrigued me was the idea that the media, in this era of what many believe is of fast declining influence, would somehow be powerful enough to help determine the course of a senatorial recount. In that sense, it’s a pretty high compliment from our conspiracy-minded commenter.

The comment did put me in mind of blogging about a topic that occurred to me before, but I never got around to. My colleague, Sarah Janecek over at Politics in Minnesota, has argued the unsigned editorial has lost its relevancy. (See “R.I.P.: The Political Impact of the Newspaper Institutional Editorial,” July 10, 2008 PIM). Perhaps I am just having more trouble giving up the ghost than Sarah, but I think newspaper editorials retain at least a little oomph, albeit greatly reduced from newspapers’ heyday. So why do I bring this up?

One of the big surprises at the tail end of the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota was that the Star Tribune chose to endorse for U.S. Senate Republican Norm Coleman rather than DFLer Al Franken. This was an extremely tight race replete with negative ads of both candidates. There were plenty of voters still on the fence about whether or not to vote for Franken when the Strib issued its endorsement of Coleman. If you were a DFLer having difficulty voting for Franken after seeing him portrayed as too divisive and partisan figure to be fit for the U.S. Senate, might not the fact that the state’s largest newspaper — despite its left-leaning editorial reputation — had chosen to go with the Republican candidate have swayed you? Keep in mind Franken won by just 312 votes. Even if just a few hundred of the hundreds of thousands of readers were tipped to the Coleman side by the Strib’s editorial, that could have cut the already razor-thin margin between the candidates in half, making the recount even trickier than it otherwise would have been. (The closer the margin, the less the room for error.)

It’s impossible to say with any degree of accuracy whether the Strib actually was to any degree a player in what became quite likely its biggest political story of the year. This debate would, of course, be much more interesting if the election had gone the other way (i.e. if Coleman had won by a few hundred votes after getting the Strib endorsement). However, in such a close race, it’s intriguing to think about the “what ifs.” Had the Strib endorsed Franken rather than Coleman, what would that final vote tally have been? If the answer is “about the same,” it may indeed be time to give up the ghost on newspaper editorial endorsements.