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Be the Judge

Andrew Steil — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:58:50 +0000

The MSBA High School Mock Trial program is a great way for Minnesota lawyers to give back to the local schools. Volunteers are needed to judge the trials this winter, held at local courthouses across the state. The time commitment is minimal but the payback, terrific.

Time Commitment – 8 hours, max
Volunteer judges are asked to spend three or four hours preparing for the trial; the trial itself lasts two hours. Volunteers are assigned to a trial in pairs. Judges Jim Dehn & Pete Cahill will facilitate a training on December 16 at 3:00. You can attend in person at the MSBA offices or by teleconference. The training has been approved for 1.5 CLE credits. For more information on judging, check the Mock Trial website.

Payback – be amazed, appreciated and meet some people too
The students and coach participants clearly spend hundreds of hours preparing the cases and learning how a trial really takes place beyond what they hear in media clips or on sensationalized television shows. Certain students master the Mock Trial Rules of Evidence. I was amazed to hear them argue evidentiary rules using the case facts and law.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and judge trials with lawyers from throughout the state.

The students really appreciate the judges’ time and effort, and it is a great way to give back to your community.

Contact Emily Reilly, MSBA Mock Trial Manager at 612.278.6306 or email her, ereilly@mnbar.org, if you want to volunteer or get more information. Please join me and volunteer to judge. Working with dedicated high school students is a tremendous privilege. I cannot wait for another great High School Mock Trial year in 2012!

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Post tags: mock trial, Volunteer

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Celebrate Pro Bono Oct 23 – 29!

Rinal Ray — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:53:37 +0000

For the better part of the last year, I’ve blogged about why you should do pro bono, how you might find a pro bono opportunity, and what to do to when you have a pro bono case. We are now approaching the Pro Bono Week, October 23-29, sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service.

During Pro Bono Week, we celebrate the privilege and opportunity to increase access to justice for all community members, challenge ourselves to take a pro bono case if we haven’t before, learn from peers about current issues and how to best serve and represent pro bono clients.

All across Minnesota, legal service offices, private firms, and MSBA Sections will join the national celebration through a series of clinics, CLEs, and other celebration events. To find an event near you, check out this interactive map featuring all of the Celebrate Pro Bono events across the country. For a list of Minnesota events from Wills for Heros to a Chili Cook-Off, visit projusticemn.org.

Some highlights:

MSBA’s Pro Bono CLE on Tuesday, October 25th will feature a welcome by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea and MSBA President Brent Routman. The morning session will be a criminal expungement training by legal services attorneys guiding would-be pro bono attorneys through the step-by-step expungement process. Over the lunch hour, choose from one of seven breakout sessions at a local law firm — everything from Nonprofit Nuts & Bolts to Child Advocacy and the Juvenile Court System. Application has been made for 3.5 CLE credits, including 1 elimination of bias credit.
Legal Assistance of Olmsted County and United Way of Olmsted County are teaming up to host a Free Legal Clinic in Rochester in the areas of bankruptcy, child support, consumer, custody, employment, estate planning, expungement, foreclosures, housing, immigration, marriage dissolution, parenting time, social security, and unemployment.
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi is collaborating with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota to present The Naturalization Project CLE Training. Best part, the CLE is free if you are willing to take a pro bono case at the end of the training!

How will you celebrate Pro Bono Week?

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Top 25 Minnesota Blawgs – 2011 Style

Nancy Hupp — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:38:13 +0000

If you have a favorite Minnesota legal blog, we want to hear from you!

Last year was the first year of the Minnesota Top 25 Blawg contest and although we specially recognized 25 blogs, we added all the nominees to the practicelaw blogroll because all the nominated blogs contained valuable discussions of various legal practice issues. We know more attorneys have started blogging in the last year, so, once again, we want to feature some of the great Minnesota legal bloggers out there.

What blog do you read over your morning coffee? Do you have a go-to blog for finding help on confusing cases or for marketing ideas? What client-focused blog inspires your own blog writing? What blog’s design makes you green with envy?

Get information and make your nominations here.

If you’re wondering about the difference between a “blog” and a “blawg,” it’s simple: Blog + Law = Blawg. We generally like to stick with calling them blogs because we don’t think the legal profession needs any more jargon, but for the sake of having some fun with our Top 25 list, it shall be blawgs.

Now you’ve got two things to do by October 31:

Make your Halloween costume; and
Nominate a blog you like (or even nominate your own… then you need not get a costume, you can go as a blogger).

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LinkedIn in Five Minutes (or less) a Day

Shaun G. Jamison — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:15:54 +0000

One of my hobbies is triathlons. The trick to endurance contests like triathlons is the right combination of effort and efficiency. The same is true of networking.

LinkedIn is an online professional networking site that boasts 120 million+ members worldwide. Like I told the attendees at last week’s MSBA Practice Management Section CLE, you can make good use of the site by spending only minutes per day.

First things first… Is it worth any of your time?

Yes. LinkedIn allows you to stay in touch with large groups of people quickly and cheaply. Of course it isn’t the same connection you’d get by meeting for coffee or lunch. But I’m not talking either/or. By all means take time to meet in person, but given the time and cost of in-person meetings, you are wise to use other methods to stay connected. LinkedIn is a free and fast method.

What can you do in five minutes?

1. Respond to invitations and messages. No point in having a profile to market yourself and then ignore people who want to network with you.

2. Comment on other people’s status updates. Encourage, congratulate, or offer suggestions. People will appreciate and remember those who do.

3. Update your own status. For example, have you written an article? Provide the link. Have you won a case, volunteered, taught a CLE? Let others know. Keep your profile current. Have you moved your office? Let people know.

4. Invite one new person to your network. LinkedIn makes it easy by providing suggestions of people you might know. Use a personal message to invite them and keep your network alive and growing

What if you have more than five minutes?

Some tasks on LinkedIn take more than five minutes, but are great ideas, so if you have some down time, participate in a LinkedIn Group, ask and answer questions, set up or promote events, ask and give recommendations.

Get networking!

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Your Obituary

Nancy Hupp — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:28:13 +0000

Yes, I read the obituaries. Not every one every day, but I peruse them frequently because I am genuinely interested in peoples’ “stories.” Knowing this, my sister sent one from her local paper which said the deceased loved his family, “but his hogs always came first.” (Yes, my sister lives in Iowa, and the deceased was a hog farmer.)

What would your obituary say? What would you want it to say? How will you be remembered?

Let’s state the obvious. No one wants to be remembered only for their work. But likewise, no attorney wants the obit to read, “Great person, lousy lawyer.” Discussions of work/life balance abound. How can you be remembered well in both arenas?

My father-in-law, a lawyer for 50+ years, died in early June. I was not surprised to hear his friends and family reflect on his good qualities. Long ago, I recognized and appreciated that my parents and in-laws gave their families nonstop teachable moments of grace, decency, and class. What gave me pause, serves as inspiration for this post, is not what friends and family remember, but what my father-in-law’s clients and work associates said. Take note:

I had the honor and pleasure of knowing John by way of his serving as corporate attorney for _______ for over 30 years. John was far more than an attorney… He served as advisor, confidant, peacemaker, and friend and always did so with great intelligence, integrity, humor, graciousness and humility. He will be deeply missed by all of us.

I was John’s secretary almost 50 years ago. He was the most honorable and finest man for whom I ever worked. I was invited to dinner with his family many times during the years his children were growing up. He was always kind and caring and I thought very highly of him.

I knew John from my years attending _______ stockholders’ meetings… and then from my participation on the ____ board for a few more years. John was an anchor of reason, patience, and support for all of us… I once told John that he occupied a prime place in my very small pantheon of genuine heroes. He just smiled … shrugged and – always the gentleman – said he appreciated that even though it wasn’t deserved. It was more than deserved. I admired his clarity, his humility, his amazing patience, his loyalty and his steadiness. Did I mention his patience? Every time he spoke, it brought mind a man named Herb Shriner, an early television personality in Indiana who was a kind of witty Mr. Rogers for grownups. That’s who John was for me… a much-needed Mr. Rogers who taught us all how to behave as mature adults. I join you and your family in mourning the loss of John’s physical presence in the world, but he will remain inside me as a spirit guide as long as I live.

Wow. I am speechless.

There is no shortage of advice on how to be a good lawyer: communicate, keep abreast of current developments, deliver competent, cost-competitive service. Add this: be true to yourself, to your values, day in and day out.

“Intelligence, integrity, humor, graciousness and humility…”

Doesn’t get any better than that.

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