Category: Reminiscence

FEBRUARY 21, 2024 – (Cont.) What I experience performing or speaking in front of a crowd varies depending on the size of the crowd. I tend to be more nervous in front of 10 readily identifiable people than I am before a sea of anonymous faces. For the bondholders meeting we’d expected the latter—legions of …

FEBRUARY 20, 2024 – (Cont.) Before taking the job at Norwest Bank and getting mixed up with the ELIC matter, I’d never heard of the law firm of Hunton & Williams (now “Hunton Andrews Kurth”), based as it was in Richmond, Virginia, which from my provincial perspective might as well have been Timbuktu. But what …

FEBRUARY 19, 2024 – (Cont.) It soon came to pass that Tom Kimer and I were aboard a Northwest flight bound for LaGuardia. It was an evening trip—several years before complimentary meals in coach were discontinued. After our onboard repast, I pulled out a legal pad to outline a strategy for our “cats and free-range …

FEBRUARY 18, 2024 – (Cont.) Each trustee bank “lawyered up.” One Texas bank, in an abundance of caution, brought two six-shooters instead of one to the fight: a primary law firm and a secondary firm to keep an eye on the primary one. Norwest retained Tom Kimer, head of the litigation department of Faegre & …

FEBRUARY 17, 2024 – Very little of my daily work life in the trenches was of much interest to people beyond the immediate parties involved, who were usually quite limited in number. In a couple of instances, my name—misspelled—appeared in a back-page newspaper article about a work-related matter, but such publicity wasn’t significant enough for …

FEBRUARY 16, 2024 – Time to take a break from the practice of law to talk about the business of . . . business: money. Or more specific to my tale, money in politics. For most of the 1990s I took a break from practicing law to work as a client for others practicing law. …

FEBRUARY 15, 2024 – (Cont.) Eric Magnuson turned out to be “A Gentleman in Minneapolis.” He was perfectly civil and respectful, and if I had “baby lawyer” written all over me, he never treated me as one. After I’d served my summary judgment papers, he even asked if there was any room for settlement. My …

FEBRUARY 14, 2024 -(Cont.) Interpretation of the statutory language was a simple example of the role that case law—“judge-made” law—plays in Anglo-American jurisprudence. Filling the shelves of every law library back in 1983 were thousands of volumes of case law “reporters”; thick, handsomely bound volumes filled with case decisions by state appellate courts and federal …

FEBRUARY 13, 2024 – (Cont.) Fast forward to a day several months later. The time was close to noon, and most of the other lawyers in the litigation department had vacated for lunch or the athletic club. I was finishing up on something before I myself would head for the club a block away to …

FEBRUARY 12, 2024 – (Cont.) More than a year and tens of thousands of miles later, I was back in Minnesota. The earth being a sphere, my “runaway route” brought me back to my point of beginning. I had flirted with far-flung risks, interests, opportunities, and possibilities that stretched my imagination and more critically, my …

FEBRUARY 11, 2024 – (Cont.) While most classmates I knew had signed up for the formal daily in-class review sessions for the bar exam, I bought only the materials and decamped for the cabin. The last place I wanted to spend June and July was inside a stuffy auditorium at the prison from which I’d …

FEBRUARY 10, 2024 – Coincidentally, just before graduation, Briggs & Morgan held its annual firm-wide dinner party at the venerable Minnesota Club a few blocks away. I thoroughly enjoyed the occasion, as I hobnobbed with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. On demand emanating from a table well-supplied with beer and wine, I took …

FEBRUARY 9, 2024 – (Cont.) I remind the reader that embedded in my murder case is supreme irony. Except . . . to appreciate the full scope of the irony you have to understand the improbable background to the story, only a portion of which has yet been told. Moreover, by now telling the tale …

FEBRUARY 8, 2024 – (Cont.) As I sat among my fellow law students hard at work on their exam essays and all destined to pass the course and successful lawyers, I was sure, I contemplated my alternative prospects and inventoried my employable skills. This didn’t take long . . . my only option was . …

FEBRUARY 7, 2024 – Yes. In my very first year of practice I handled a murder case—all by my lonesome, as my dad used to joke about solo efforts, usually in reference to cabin projects involving his clever deployment of wheel and lever. It wasn’t exactly a murder case per se. It arose out of …

FEBRUARY 6, 2024 – (Cont.) Well into the fast-moving trial I called Jeff to the stand. “Mr. S_________ [Jeff], can you tell us what you do for a living?” “Auto mechanic.” “How long have you had that occupation?” “About 25—30 years.” “Continuously?” “Yeah. I drove truck for a couple of years—year and-a-half, to be exact—summer …

FEBRUARY 5, 2024 – (Cont.) Two o’clock came and went without any word from the other lawyer. I didn’t need the stress. Since my phone call with him mid-morning, I’d been besieged with calls and emails on unrelated matters—matters of consequence for regular clients. The last thing I needed right then was the worry that …

FEBRUARY 4, 2024 – (Cont.) After my evening workout and supper, by which time I’d almost conveniently forgotten about John’s case . . . or was it Sue’s? . . . I realized I hadn’t even spoken with John about it yet . . . I pulled the skimpy contents out of the folder Sue …

FEBRUARY 3, 2024 – My craziest trial I conducted by the seat of my pants. My client was John, my office building superintendent by way of Sue, the in-house lawyer for Al, who worked for the building owner. Al had retained me as well on matters pertaining to other companies that Al managed. Sue herself …

FEBRUARY 2, 2024 – (Cont.) I liked the jury pool. I was looking for alert, practical people whose mouth corners at rest were turned up—a sign of folks less severe and buttoned down. The plaintiff and his lawyer were of the opposite ilk: rigid and serious. Walter was anything but rigid. He could get out …

FEBRUARY 1, 2024 – (Cont.) After numerous attempts, I finally nailed down a block of time when I could begin prepping Walter for his trial testimony—my direct examination and opposing counsel’s likely cross-examination. Upon emerging from his office, Walter ushered me into a small conference room. Walter began pacing as I dumped a load of …

JANUARY 31, 2024 – (Cont.) The arbitration took place in a room of the old Minneapolis City Hall, a massive structure built of Cyclopean granite blocks to withstand a direct hit by a nuclear warhead, even though its construction was completed 60 years before the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the building was deemed …

JANUARY 30, 2024 – As I explained to a non-lawyer recently, my half dozen or so jury trials (and a couple dozen court (judge as trier of fact; no jury) trials and various evidentiary hearings in between) represented but a small fraction of my entire practice over 40-plus years. Yet it was those jury trials …

JANUARY 29, 2024 – (Cont.) My case-in-chief took a day. For the rest of the week, the defense fired a Gatling gun of spitballs into the courtroom. I had to bite my tongue on my principal objections to the lawyer’s unorganized evidence: lack of foundation and irrelevance. In a trial, you always have to be …

JANUARY 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Seasoned jury trial lawyers will tell you that to prepare your case for the crucible of trial, you need to work backwards, starting with jury instructions. These are proposed and negotiated between counsel and the judge, then finalized and presented by the judge to the jury after closing arguments and …