Update (November 24, 2014): LEGAL MACHINERY. PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER WARNING: if you take on any significant contingent fee litigation, there is a downside in addition the sunk costs of your uncompensated invested time. There is a real and present risk of being tagged with defendants’ substantial costs. ($37,000 in photocopy costs!?) (I note that defendant Home Depot […]
You retain a lawyer in year 1 to help you in a trusts and estates matter. The lawyer assists you for ten years. In year 12, new lawyer identifies that the first lawyer you hired did a bad job and the lawyer’s substandard performance of work resulted in large otherwise avoidable tax liability. New lawyer sues old […]
Update (November 18, 2014): When is a meritorious lawsuit more likely a liability rather than an asset? When the defendant is judgment-proof. I will go out on a limb and predict that RAzOR Capital, the subject of an earlier post, below, will win on its recent motion for summary judgment against HP Debt Exchange, LLC. But that, plus […]
While I love nearly everything about our system of justice, and those who labor in its fields, one occasional exception for me has been the “legal fiction”. Pick your favorite. There are many examples. To name a few of current significance: The corporation as “person”, and money as “speech”. One of the most laughable of […]
Update (November 14, 2014): Since my earlier post on Bruce Carneil Webster’s case, below (the death penalty case in which Dorsey & Whitney lawyers are fighting for Webster, a mentally retarded man on death row), Webster lost the appeal before a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals. So Dorsey lawyers undertook […]
Update (November 13, 2014): This endless case might be nearing its end, with the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ dramatic reduction in the trial court’s award of the victorious Plaintiff’s lawyers’ fees. We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in awarding $221,499.50 in attorney fees [to the winning Plaintiff’s lawyers] for this litigation…This case is […]
A new book has come out on Rosalie Wahl and her place in Minnesota history. And an event will be held next week hosted by the Minnesota Supreme Court Historical Society that will celebrate her life. So it’s a good time to think about her. One of the things everyone knew about Rosalie was […]
Update (November 12, 2014): It seems with each filing (as described below) the news gets worse for defendant U.S. Sugar Company in this case, which appears to be about the defendant’s misfortune of buying sugar at historic high prices before a collapse in sugar prices. In United Sugars’ summary judgment brief we learn that one […]
Minnesota Litigator has followed the case of alleged professional malpractice by JJ Holand against the preeminent Twin Cities law firm of Fredrikson & Byron for a few years now. It turns out the case may have been D.O.A. (“dead on arrival”) on Day 1 and now Fredrikson & Byron is striking back with a “Rule […]
In even the most cosmopolitan and urban legal settings (not to speak of remote rural courthouses), judges know lawyers and lawyers know judges. Personally. They are former partners. They are former colleagues. They are spouse’s class-mates. They are parents of kids’ friends. They attend the same places of worship. They are humans with similar socio-economic […]