Imagine a lawyer saying the following in closing argument in a civil trial: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my mother is here today. She’s right there, sitting in back of the courtroom… [To his mother:] “Hi, Mom.”] [stage direction: old lady waves to beloved son]…My mom taught me something. Something very important. She taught […]
Update (October 27, 2017): In the case described below, U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson (D. Minn.) has issued an order permitting the deposition of one of Plaintiff’s lawyers (excerpt of order linked here), leaving for another day whether Attorney Vang may be both counsel of record and a witness at trial… Original Post (October […]
Thoughts About Legal Malpractice Claims for Non-Lawyers: The Three C’s: Over the past seven years of practice, LEVENTHAL pllc has handled over a dozen claims for clients with claims of legal malpractice or claims related to legal malpractice (e.g., fee disputes) against Minnesota lawyers. All but one of the ten has been resolved favorably for our clients. […]
Update (October 23, 2017): Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota v. Wells Fargo, the multi-year lawsuit described below (and the Jesse Ventura v. Chris Kyle litigation, covered ad nauseam previously (see here, here and here)) should teach litigators some critical lessons. Today’s winners are tomorrow’s losers and, the day after tomorrow, the opposite. Lather, rinse, […]
Plaintiff’s lawyers, Joseph Larson, David Schlesinger, and Janet Olawsky might be both crying and celebrating after the award of $305,000 in legal fees for their lawsuit brought on behalf of Stephanie Jenkins. They might cry because they sought $818,000 in legal fees and costs and the Court awarded them less than half. They might celebrate […]
Imagine you are a business, a corporation, and you sell off part of your business to one of your executives. After the sale, you are convinced that the buyer, your former fellow shareholder, ripped you off to the tune of millions of dollars by concealing “the true value” of the spun-off asset. You sue him. […]
Mr. Kenneth Udoibok’s passions, it seems, are justice and empowerment. He’s a 20+ year solo Minnesota litigator who focuses on criminal defense, police brutality, employment cases and insurance coverage cases. He fights for “the little guy.” His story, his journey from Nigeria to the Minnesota, is extraordinary as he, himself, is. Our interview concludes with […]
More recently than you might think, humans branded other humans’ flesh. In Canadian military prisons, officials apparently branded some prisoners with “BC,” standing for “bad character.” (We would have thought the good people of British Columbia would have strongly objected to that brand.) Obviously, we now think of ourselves as living in a far more enlightened […]
Update (October 11, 2017): Oops, I did it again…got lost in this game, oh baby. (Another successful prediction, below.) Congratulations to the winning lawyer team: Andrew L. Marshall, Mark R. Bradford, and Christine E. Hinrichs, Bassford Remele, P.A., Minneapolis. Justice Gildea’s dissent (joined by Justice G. Barry Anderson) emphasizes that Minnesota is an employment-at-will state, where employers […]
Update (October 6, 2017): We did not exactly predict that Associated Bank would lose its bid for its attorneys’ fees in the original post, below, but we came pretty close. The Bank’s attempted “end-around” the American Rule through a clever use of a request to admit failed this week. The maneuver works like this (1) Seek […]