Want lunch with the general counsel of U.S. Bank, General Mills, Cargill, UnitedHealth or Medtronic?
It'll cost you at least a couple grand. And you'll probably have to wait until next year.
The top lawyers at those Twin Cities-based corporations auctioned off lunch for four at the Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid fundraiser Thursday evening. Bidding for what Legal Aid called a "priceless opportunity" started at $500 and increased by $150 per bid.
At one point, the silent auction bids ranged between $1,750…
Want lunch with the general counsel of U.S. Bank, General Mills, Cargill, UnitedHealth or Medtronic?
It'll cost you at least a couple grand. And you'll probably have to wait until next year.
The top lawyers at those Twin Cities-based corporations auctioned off lunch for four at the Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid fundraiser Thursday evening. Bidding for what Legal Aid called a "priceless opportunity" started at $500 and increased by $150 per bid.
At one point, the silent auction bids ranged between $1,750…
A legless military veteran is suing Carlson Hotels and AmericInn for disabled access to the hotel chains' pools.
Dana Bowman, a retired special forces soldier who lost his legs in a 1994 parachuting accident that killed another soldier, said he tried to book a room at Twin Cities hotels for a speaking engagement.
Hotels under the Minnetonka-based Carlson and Chanhassen-based AmericInn brands didn't have pool lifts or other ways to help Bowman into the pool as required under the federal Americans…
Minnesota Supreme Court Justice-to-be David Lillehaug disclosed Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer.
"Fortunately, it has been caught very early, it is localized, and it is highly curable," he said in a statement.
He continued:
"My doctors at the nationally renowned Virginia Piper Institute, part of Abbott Northwestern Hospital, are preparing a seven-week non-surgical treatment plan to start in mid-June. All agree that this development will not prevent me from serving as an…
Dorsey & Whitney partner Katherine Constantine will replace retiring U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Dennis O'Brien.
Constantine chairs the Minneapolis law firm's bankruptcy and financial restructuring group.
She'll take over for O'Brien when he retires on June 30. You might remember O'Brien from a nasty case with a name-calling Minneapolis attorney that gained some national attention, but he's also presided over a few Twin Cities bankruptcy reorganization cases that I've covered.
Constantine "will…
Retailers are itching for a fight against the nation's credit card processors, revolting against a proposed $7.25 billion settlement.
But the Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi lawyer who negotiated the massive settlement said Monday that their objections are unlikely to torpedo the deal, which would be the largest U.S. antitrust settlement ever and one of the largest mega-settlements — and lawyer payouts — in history.
Target, Macy's and other major retailers filed their own lawsuits against Visa…
Eight lawyers left Hinshaw & Culbertson's Minneapolis office to establish a foothold in the Twin Cities for a Philadelphia-based law firm.
Tom Wallrich will lead Cozen O’Connor's new Minneapolis office, the firm said. He is joined by transaction lawyers and commercial litigators Steven Silton, Thomas Kane, Peter Crema, Nadia Hasan, Heather Marx, Joel Nesset and Kristi Zenter.
The group joined Cozen from Chicago-based Hinshaw this week. All are joining their new firm as partners, the Philadelphia…
Faegre Baker Daniels is opening a Silicon Valley office.
The new location, in Palo Alto, Calif., is the firm’s first expansion since its 2012 merger with Indianapolis-based Baker & Daniels and will be the Minneapolis-based law firm’s westernmost outpost (before jumping the Pacific to the Shanghai office).
Minneapolis-based intellectual property partners Cal Litsey and David Gross already have moved to California to open the office Monday, July 1.
Both have clients with significant Silicon…
The ex-Napster CEO whose unsuccessfully sued Best Buy has appealed his lawsuit's dismissal, court records show.
Chris Gorog, of Los Angeles, has asked the Eight Circuit to review last month's dismissal of his contract lawsuit, which came after Minnesota U.S. District Judge David Doty issued a confidential order in the case.
Gorog was Napster's CEO in 2008 when Richfield-based Best Buy bought the music website for $121 million. He left the company in 2009 and sued last year, saying Best Buy owed…
A former Dorsey & Whitney partner will lead a new office in China for another law firm.
Corporate lawyer Liza Mark will lead Dallas-based Haynes and Boone's new Shanghai office as administrative partner, the firm said.
Dorsey hired Mark as an associate in 1998. She worked in the Minneapolis office until leaving for another firm in 2005. She returned as a partner in Dorsey's Hong Kong office in 2007, working there until her mid-May departure.
Mark worked on transactions for companies including…
An Edina attorney who was convicted of six counts of swindle and one count of perjury has been disbarred from practicing law in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Supreme Court disbarred Terri A. Hauge, who first was admitted to practice law in the state in 1980 and has been disciplined by the court three times in the past.
The recent criminal charges stemmed from Hauge's work as a guardian for more than 200 vulnerable adults for her company, Estate Resources.
In 2010, she was charged with stealing $68,000…
Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act will affect Twin Cities employers more than businesses in states that don't recognize gay marriage.
"If we had not legalized same sex marriage in Minnesota then today's ruling would not have mattered, would not have had much impact on Twin Cities employers," said Sarah Riskin, a labor and employment lawyer at Minneapolis law firm Nilan Johnson Lewis.
The ruling has some federal tax implications for couples in same-sex marriages. Employees…
A panel of Minnesota judges has kicked a Washington, D.C., law firm off of the state's environmental lawsuit against 3M Co.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals disqualified Covington & Burling Monday for a conflict of interest, upholding a lower court's ruling that the law firm shouldn't go after its former client on behalf of the state in its pollution case against the Maplewood-based manufacturer.
Covington represented 3M's fluorochemicals business for years, but dropped 3M "like a hot potato" to…
The Minnesota Supreme Court wants to make it faster and easier to resolve smaller business disputes.
The state's highest court has handed down new rules to make discovery less burdensome, along with a test program for earlier trial dates in two counties that could spread to the rest of the state if it works. The new rules take effect this week (view them in untranslated legalese here).
Some changes have their detractors. Minneapolis lawyer Seth Leventhal sees "land mines" in a few of the new rules,…
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi is one of the most pro bono-focused law firms in the United States, according to a new ranking by American Lawyer.
The Minneapolis law firm ranked seventh for pro bono work among the nation's 200 largest law firms. American Lawyer ranked the firms by average pro bono hours per lawyer in 2012 (115.6 for Robins Kaplan) and percent of lawyers who performed more than 20 hours of pro bono work (76 percent for Robins Kaplan).
More than 7 percent of the firm's total lawyer…
Don Lewis, the dean of the Hamline University School of Law, is leaving to practice full-time at the law firm he co-founded, Nilan Johnson Lewis.
Lewis has been the St. Paul law school's dean since July 2008, holding an "of counsel" position at the Minneapolis law firm in that time. He'll step down as dean at the end of the year, the university and his law firm said.
"My work at Hamline has been both the most fulfilling and most challenging in my career," Lewis said in a statement. " I’ve especially…
Digi International Inc.'s former chief financial officer will pay a fine and stay out of public companies for five years to settle securities fraud charges.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Subramanian "Kris" Krishnan of approving unauthorized expenses for himself and other Digi employees, including unexplained cash payments in the Minnetonka-based public company's Hong Kong office.
Krishnan agreed to a $60,000 fine and a ban from public companies until at least September 2017, according…
