“I promise not to turn your world inside-out by forcing you to dive deep into the matrix of your client’s computer system if you promise me the same courtesy.” This civil litigator truce, this equilibrium, this “idiot’s bargain,” (I call it that because it is based on a mutual recognition of one’s own incompetence and […]

Imagine three scenarios: Neighbor A pleads with Neighbor B repeatedly over a two year period to attend to a precariously looming dying tree on B’s property overhanging A’s house.  B intentionally delays addressing the problem because B dislikes A, which B makes clear to A (“I’ll take my sweet time. Cool your friggin’ jets, you […]

Minnesotans all know that we stand on the edge of a slippery precipice around this time of year.  We are on the icy threshold of the Minnesota winter, which, by the standards of the United States of America as a whole (along with about 95% of the rest of the world human population) is an […]

Minnesota Litigator celebrates its fifth birthday today, September 22, 2013.  It is appropriate and fitting, I guess, that I am in the office early in the morning this day (a Sunday) preparing for a trial this coming week.  Yet again, I am 100% certain that I represent the right side and I can only hope […]

The square-dance step called “Dosey Do,” Do Si Do, or Dosado, derives from the french dos-à-dos, or back-to-back.  Dancers approach one another, pass one another (partner to your right), are back-to-back, and then return (partner to your left) to where you started. The dance step is a metaphor for courtship, where we start apart, we […]

I received an email from the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron last week entitled, “FredALERT: International – September 2013.”  Needless to say, I stopped everything to review this emergency alert. I am lucky I did. Fred needed to alert me, it seems, to be mindful of my hiring practices in China.  Fred specifically […]