I read the local blotter religiously and am embarrassed to say it often makes me laugh. Right at the outset, I want to be clear that I know crime isn’t funny. But I am a devotee of peoples’ stories and not only read the blotter, but read Police were called to Wal-mart … because two women were arguing after one of them did not yield the right of way to the other woman’s shopping cart.obituaries as well. I’d like to claim that I am interested in the human condition but I really think I just like to ponder what makes people tick. Sometimes they make me appreciate my own life or they give me a chance to live vicariously. Really, there is something cathartic in walking over to a guy irritating you and slapping him with a raw steak. Read on.

In addition to my own collection, I’ve got friends and relatives who, once aware of my habit, send me snippets from other places. Here are some of my favorites, grouped loosely by their appeal.

Food (and related items)

“According to police reports, the argument was over spaghetti…”

“Police were called to … where two adult brothers were fighting over a McDonald’s double cheeseburger…”

“A man told police his apartment was burglarized, with a suspect taking 150 CDs, a TV, a pair of shoes, two gaming systems, a guitar, two amplifiers, a subwoofer, four pairs of sunglasses, 2 Bob Marley plaques, an autographed football and 12 video games, worth more than $5,500. The unknown suspect also ate the victim’s Doritos.” (emphasis added)

“A caller…reported that a neighbor came over to use the bathroom and when leaving took some paper plates.”

Last but not least, how about the woman who, after her boyfriend refused a slice of bread and demanded a dinner roll, slapped him in the face with a raw steak. That’s love.

Indecision

Speaking of loved ones, sometimes you just need some space. Or not.

“A woman … called police to report a man missing. She had told the man to leave and not return, then changed her mind.”

“An officer received a complaint from a woman who said her mother had arrived for Christmas and was now refusing to leave.”

The rationale

While in law school, I had a student practice license which allowed me to represent the State of Illinois in traffic court. I am here to tell you that there is no limit to the stories an accused will relate to get out of a ticket. I still pine for the incredible rationales proffered by the criminal. Similarly, the blotter doesn’t disappoint.

“Police were called to Wal-mart… because two women were arguing after one of them did not yield the right of way to the other woman’s shopping cart.”

“A man playing disc golf in a park…allegedly cut down a mature tree with a chain saw to retrieve his disc.”

But my favorite is this guy; note the careful parsing of words. He must have been a terrific teenager, a real credit to the age group.

“A man with no shirt and a cowboy hat was in a parking lot …twirling flaming sticks around the parked cars. An officer arrived and… spoke to a man matching the description and he said he was not twirling flaming sticks, but they were flaming balls on the end of chains..,” (emphasis added)

Oh, well then, if they were just flaming balls…

Last week, I stumbled upon a jurisdictional matter, a treat for my lawyerly mind.

“A man came to the police station to report the theft of his wallet. But the theft did not occur in Apple Valley — it happened while he was on a train in France. He said he ‘didn’t have time to report it to police while in France.’ “

As write this, I’m about to leave on vacation. My goal? Relax. Read. Sail. Bike. Canoe. Not check email. Spend time with family. And last but not least, find some good blotter items in papers along the journey. But not appear in any.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Crime, Humor, Police

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• Play nice. Be civil. To opposing counsel, court clerks, coworkers.

• Get organized or find someone who is. My father-in-law worked for the same Chicago law firm for 50+ years. Recently he mused aloud, “How many times being organized saved me. Not being smart, just being organized. It’s a critical skill, critical…” My father was also a lawyer, organized he was not, so he hired Minnie early on. As my brother quipped at his retirement party, “If not for Minnie, my father would have spent 49 of 50 years of law practice looking for his files.” He did better.

• Don’t adopt a scorch-the-earth, fight everything approach. Save your battles.

• Know the difference between the minimum standard and best practice. Adopt the latter and associate with those who do as well.

• Read the ethics rules. Reread them. Ask.

• Don’t cut corners.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate – early and often, with clients and partners and coworkers. No one ever lost a license for over-informing a client.

• Go to all the Bar-Bri classes.

• Pay it forward.

• Learn how to say “no.” If you can’t get it done, you can’t. Better to be honest. (This is the corollary to Nike’s “Just Do It”).

• Note the smallness of your legal community. You have one reputation, one chance to wreck it, few chances to rehabilitate it.

My follow-up question to my coworkers was, “What was your biggest mistake as a lawyer?” I was surprised by the smallness of their biggest mistakes – misspelling a guardian’s name in a will, going to the wrong city (St. Paul, not Minneapolis) to observe a bankruptcy hearing, checking posted bar exam scores at the Cathedral of St. Paul instead of the Capitol (Hey, if you’re new in town, from downtown St. Paul, the Cathedral looks a lot like the Capitol. Okay, there is the cross on the top…)

Guess what? All is well. The Will was corrected, the Bankruptcy Judge took pity and spilled the beans on what happened at the hearing, I passed the bar exam the first time around even though it was a long walk to figure that out. In other words, we are all still standing, even giving advice.

Happy May. Congratulations.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Law School

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Having been successful in my private life, I am going to reapply the lesson learned to my professional life, that is, if you want something done, just “put it out there.” So today’s topic is My Wildest (Professional) Dream (that you renew your MSBA membership) a/k/a The Top 10 Reasons I am Writing a Blog Post on the Top 10 Reasons to Renew your MSBA Membership.

10I won’t have to think about another topic to blog about.

9The marketing person who asked me to write it is nice to me; the entire Marketing staff are great to work with, professional, hard working.

8 It beats the heck out of calling members to ask them to renew. The last time I called to ask for money was as part of a capital campaign for our church. The lists were old.  My first call?  To someone in home hospice.

7I can think less about how my program will do more with less. At age 52 (as of this week), anything that promises less cogent thought is attractive.

6My journalistic ethics are under-developed; after all, I am a lawyer-by-trade. I am not above being a shill for my employer.

5I said I’d do it and can’t back out now.

4Member renewal dollars pay my salary; two of my kids will be enrolled in college next year. Ouch.

3I think the Marketing campaign is clever and if I don’t support it, we could return to something much less entertaining.

2Someone scammed me into thinking I could turn this around as a way to thank members for all they do. Methinks they will see through that ruse. But I do like working with members – hands down, one of the best parts of the job.

DRUMROLL. The #1 reason I am asking you to renew your membership?

1It’s easy. The MSBA is doing great things for its members. To steal a phrase, “This isn’t your father’s bar association.” Here they are. Read them and renew. You’ll make all my dreams come true.

In the last year, the MSBA…

• Taught 7,000 students about the rule of law and civic rights and responsibilities through the Civic Education programs.
• Added two new certification areas – Criminal Law and Labor and Employment Law.
• Changed the annual convention format to bring full-day CLE programs to Minnesota’s eight judicial districts outside the Twin Cities.
• Fought for the integrity of Minnesota’s judicial system by aggressively advocating for a judicial election reform bill.
• Launched a digital edition of Bench & Bar of Minnesota, enabling members to link to resources cited and electronically search, share, and save articles of special interest.
• Hired a Government Relations Director to actively lobby on behalf of the MSBA and keep members informed of legislative issues affecting the Minnesota legal community.
• Oversaw development of  forms and resources posted on practicelaw for use in marital dissolution, foreclosure, civil litigation, real property, probate, and appellate practice matters.
• Provided quality, timely, free or low-cost, one-hour CLE programs through MSBA sections, setting records for programs, credits, and attendance.

*An aside – I used several Flair markers, in varied colors, to complete my list. One of my kitchen visitors read the list, then commented, “I never took you for someone who’d use different colored pens.” Not sure what she meant, but, I digress…

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Developments, MSBA, Updates

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I speak with authority because my youngest child is now a senior. I’ve listened to all three of my kids moan and groan about the cruel expectations of their high school English teachers. My oldest, who is a very talented writer, was indignant when her high school English teacher told the class he would not accept papers with spelling errors. WHAT! And my youngest groaned that the very same teacher, “makes a big deal about every stupid comma.” To date, their complaints have failed to raise my ire, in fact, I applaud him and Judge Kressel.

I don’t mean to suggest I don’t make mistakes. Before the days of spellcheck, I misspelled “environmental” (forgot the “n” in the middle) in every one of my law school applications. As I handed out a class syllabus on the first day of class at Hamline, I noticed my helpful advice, “If you want to give me a massage, call my voicemail …” This was the only class I ever taught where I decided not to distribute the syllabus on the first day!

And I am all for forgetting things I’ve learned. I used to know something about calculus, could diagram the entire Krebs cycle, and could tell you in detail about the escapades of Vasco da Gama. I’d be hard pressed to deliver up any of that knowledge today. But knowing the English language is a different matter – ideally one’s writing should improve with age and experience, not gather dust. To my mother’s horror, I never learned to diagram a sentence, but I have a passable sense of grammar and style and that is all Judge Kressel is asking.

When I was a new associate in a St. Paul law firm, one of the partners, in an act of desperation, visited a nearby bookstore, purchased 30 copies of Elements of Style and left one on everyone’s desk. Interestingly, today, he is also on the bench. And my son, the senior in high school? Well, his first reading assignment was none other than Elements of Style. He grumped and groaned all the way through it. I hope it doesn’t go the way of the Krebs cycle.

© Nancy Hupp for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Drafting, Legalese, Orders

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An interesting experiment came out of that discussion, namely I agreed to buy my Will (I actually need one) through LegalZoom, record my process in doing so, and then compare the process and product with the process and product of obtaining a Will from one of my colleagues, who I will hire to draft a Will.  Another Off the Clock participant agreed she would look at employment-related contracts and compare her own contracts and work product with that of an online ‘do-it-yourself’ vendor.

(...)
Read the rest of Do-It-Yourself Legal Services (137 words)

© Gregory Luce for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: LegalZoom, Pro Se

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