Law Day dinner did good for Legal Aid

Last nights "Law Day" dinner was a really nice event.

More than 1,100 tickets were sold for the 27th Annual Law Day Testimonial Dinner, which benefits the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis. The event was sponsored by the Fund for the Legal Aid Society and the Hennepin County Bar Association.

Following a great dinner, a nice testimonial was made to Laura Cooper, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who spent 24 years on the board of the Minneapolis Legal Aid Society and also served as its president.

The keynote speaker, Tom Goldstein (at right), co-head of the Supreme Court practice at Akin Gump, in Washington, D.C., gave attendees an Insiders View of the Supreme Court. He stressed the importance of the upcoming presidential election to the makeup of the high court, pointing out that at least two of the more progressive justices will be retiring in the next four years -- John Paul Stevens and David Souter. Its possible that left-leaning Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may leave the court as well.

That means that if a Democrat makes it into the White House, the court will likely remain status quo, but that if a Republican gets in, the court will end up leaning even more heavily to the right that it currently does, Goldstein said. If youre a progressive you should be worried; if you're a conservative, party on! he told the crowd.

Goldsteins quip that Legal Aid lawyers will do more good than the Supreme Court will do this year also got a big laugh.

It was great to see such a large crowd show up to honor and celebrate the work of Minneapolis Legal Aid. My understanding is that it was the best turnout yet for the annual event -- and from what I could tell, people really enjoyed the evening.

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

May I say, it's May 1?

In all the chaos today, I very nearly forgot to mention,

Happy Law Day all!

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

UST Law has unplanned controversy over volunteer credits

There is a article worth reading on MinnPost about the University of St. Thomas School of Law. A student at the school was apparently denied "volunteer credits" (required by the school as part of its curriculum) for volunteer work done with Planned Parenthood.

According to MinnPost, Dean Thomas Mengler announced in a campuswide letter that students would not receive credit for volunteering at Planned Parenthood or any other organization "whose mission is fundamentally in conflict with a core value of a Catholic university."

The story goes on to note:

Several dozen St. Thomas law students signed an open letter to Mengler earlier this week, which voiced concerns about the law school's ability to attract a diverse range of students, both those who agree with the church's teachings and those who do not. (For the full MinnPost article, click here.)

It's a difficult conflict between the school's religious underpinnings and principles of academic freedom. The school seems to be leaning toward resolving this particular controversy in favor of the former, which could make the school a more difficult sell, particularly to nonCatholic students. On the other hand, being too flexible on this issue could threaten the young school's core identity. Nobody ever said being a law school with a mission would be easy ...

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

Surrogacy contract bill expected to pass this session

Legislation that would enable surrogacy contracts has been heard in committee in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and is expected to go to the governor this session. Thats the word from Maple Grove attorney Glen Norton, the legislative chair for the Minnesota State Bar Association Family Law Section. The MSBA General Assembly has backed the legislation.

Senate File 2965 sets forth both the law regarding gestational carrier contracts and also contains provisions regarding the rights of the parties in cases of donated embryos. The latter sets up a scheme similar to the existing law regarding the parental rights of sperm donors, or more accurately, the absence thereof. When an embryo is donated, the donor is not treated as a biological parent; the intended parents are treated as parents under the law, assuming the requirements outlined in the bill are followed.

The gestational contract provisions regulate both gestational carriers and intended parents. Parental rights would vest immediately upon the childs birth under the legislation. The bill also provides for legal or equitable damages to either party if the contract is breached.

Surprisingly, no opposition to the legislation has materialized, Norton said. The bill does not address the controversial subject of how to deal with embryos that are not fertilized. Additional legislation on that may be needed in the future, Norton said.

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

April is a cruel month for some law students

As we close in on law school graduation season here in the Gopher State, not everyone who will be donning a robe and mortar board next month is a happy camper. Every year at about this time we hear from a disenchanted law student or two -- and this year is no different.

In a recent post, we noted that the University of Minnesota Law School had "slipped" from 20 to 22 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the "Top 100" law schools. In response to that post, yesterday we received the following comment purportedly from a third-year law student at the U of M:

Honestly, for job placements Minnesota Law School (sic), isn't even 4th tier. We send less than 20 percent of our graduates top the top 250 firms, while most schools in the top 30 send at least a third. We have significantly lower salaries than other comparable law schools In my 3l class most students do not have jobs.

Appropriately enough, the comment was made under the nom de plume "Bitter 3L." I cannot vouch for any of the factual assertions contained in the post. In fact, I am nearly positive that, if called upon to do so, the U of M would pull up all sorts of placement statistics showing things are not nearly as dire as portrayed in this comment. But the statistics are not what interests me. Whatever the real numbers are, every year some law students head merrily off to prestigious clerkships or lucrative Big Law jobs, while others live lives of quiet desperation, facing a lot of debt and few job prospects. Schools trumpet the stories of the first group, but rarely mention the second.

I have some thoughts of my own on some of the issues implicated in 3L's remarks, but thought I'd toss it out into the blogosphere to let you comment. Do any of you more seasoned and grizzled attorneys have any words of wisdom for our bitter young friend?

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

More firms hiring diversity managers

Altman Weil has come out with the results of an interesting survey on diversity in law firms. The Altman Weil Flash Survey on the Diversity Director Position in Large Law Firms reports that 58 percent of participating law firms have a designated diversity manager or director, up 8 percent from 2007, and 13 percent from fall 2005 when the first diversity flash survey was conducted.

The survey also found that 100 percent of participants report having a diversity committee in their firm, up from 96 percent in the prior year. (The survey canvassed large U.S. law firms in the AmLaw 200 and includes responses from 80 participating firms collected in March and April 2008.)

Here in Minnesota, many law firms are following suit. A lot of the larger firms have already implemented diversity committees, and at least one, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, has hired a diversity manager. E. Marie Broussard (at right) joined the firm earlier this year. She spoke with Minnesota Lawyer about the importance of her position in February.

The most important thing a diversity manager does is call on the conscience of the people in the organization, she said. The law is especially resistant to change. My job is to make sure change happens within the people within the organization.

The importance of developing and promoting diversity within law firms and the legal community in general cant be understated, particularly in Minnesota where we have some difficulty attracting and retaining diverse lawyers. The formation of diversity committees and the hiring of diversity managers are clearly positive steps towards those goals.

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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]

Senate Republicans Block Fair Pay Measure

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a measure intended to overturn a Supreme Court decision limiting pay discrimination suits in a politically charged vote certain to be replayed in the presidential and Congressional campaigns. By a vote of 56 to 42, the Senate fell four votes short of the 60 required to begin consideration of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, named for an Alabama woman who lost a case against the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company when the court found she not did file her...

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[Source: HR Lawyer's Blog]