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The official publication of the Minnesota State Bar Association



Feature Articles


From 0 to HF100: Legal cannabis comes to Minnesota
Jared M. Reams & Rachel S. Kurth
Sep 01, 2023
Gov. Tim Walz signed HF100 on May 30, 2023, after a nearly six-month journey through numerous committees and revised engrossments in the Minnesota House and Senate, making Minnesota the 23rd state to legalize recreational-use cannabis.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Legislation
  • Cannabis
Understanding expungement under the new cannabis law
Dea Cortney & Samuel Edmunds
Sep 01, 2023
Some, but not all, expungements will occur automatically.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Criminal Law
  • Cannabis
In the weeds: Firearm ownership, cannabis, and the hemp exception
AARON EDWARD BROWN
Sep 01, 2023
There’s a cannabis-related absurdity in federal firearms law.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Legislation
  • Cannabis
Why are we using race and gender tables to set tort damages in 2023?
Sep 01, 2023
The Legislature is the likeliest source of change.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Tort Law
Public access, private lives
Michael P. Boulette, Seungwon R. Chung, and Abby N. Sunberg
Aug 02, 2023
In Minnesota most divorce records are public documents, accessible to anyone with an internet connection. That’s a problem.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Divorce
  • Courts
Minnesota reforms law to ban (almost) all noncompete agreements
George H. Singer
Aug 02, 2023
This year Minnesota became the first state in 100 years to ban the widely used but controversial agreements.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Employment Law
Minnesota endorses nonsolicitation agreements
V. John Ella
Aug 02, 2023
With noncompetes a thing of the past, time to get familiar with nonsolicitation agreements.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Employment Law
MEPA at 50
MICHAEL DAMASCO
Aug 02, 2023
Refocusing the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act through an environmental justice lens
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  • CATEGORY
  • Environment and Natural Resources Law
Prosecuting War Crimes in Ukraine
ELLEN J. KENNEDY
Aug 02, 2023
The worst crimes in the world are known as the four core international crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. Although these terms are used widely in the news, especially in reference to crimes occurring in today’s war in Ukraine, distinctions between them are not widely known.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Online Only
Paul Floyd: The artful lawyer
Jul 05, 2023
As a rule, clients want their attorneys to be competent, learned, persistent—but artistic? For Paul Floyd, practicing art as a discipline has been a part of his life since around 2009, or about a third of the time he’s been a practicing lawyer.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Art
  • Profiles
  • President
MSBA President 2023-24: Paul Floyd, bridge builder
Amy Lindgren
Jul 05, 2023
If you ask Paul Floyd how he sees himself, the response won’t be glib or simple.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Profiles
  • President
Federal courts open the gates to Minnesota punitive-damages claims
Nick Bullard and Luke Wetterstrom
Jul 05, 2023
The threat of punitive damages is a game-changer in civil litigation. It ratchets up the financial stakes and imperils the defendant’s reputation—often creating intense pressure to settle. Get ready for more of this game-changer in federal court, thanks to a recent shift in case law.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Civil Litigation
2023 MN Legislative Session Review
Bryan Lake
Jul 05, 2023
Partisan divisions, few compromises, limited accomplishments: These were the essential elements of every Minnesota legislative session recap from 2015 through 2022. During those years neither major political party had simultaneous control of the House, Senate, and governor’s office—the trifecta, as it is known—and, predictably, the divisions in government caused constant gridlock.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Legislation
Exchange: Letter to the editor from MN County Attorneys Association regarding “Getting Serious About Prosecutorial Misconduct” by Barry Edwards and Stacy Bettison
Robert M. Small
May 30, 2023
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  • CATEGORY
  • Letters to the Editor
We need to talk about ChatGPT
Damien Riehl
May 24, 2023
The ascendence of advanced large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and ChatGPT have sparked conversations about the future of the legal profession and how these AI-driven systems might help remedy some of the profession’s less-favorable aspects.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Legal Writing
  • Technology
Textbooks and Toddlers: Returning to law school as a parent
OLIVIA LIZ-FONTS
May 24, 2023
Most would say that the perfect time to pursue law school is straight after graduating college. For me, it was after having my two children.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Law School
Watch your abbreviations
IAN LEWENSTEIN
May 24, 2023
Used without limits, abbreviations reveal their secret life as an insidious form of jargon, serving as insider shorthand to the detriment of readers unfamiliar with this ABC lingo. Certain abbreviations—specifically, initialisms—are also confusing, distracting, and, as you’ll see, usually unnecessary.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Legal Writing
U.S. immigration strategies for employers in a tight labor market
Calleigh M. McRaith, Misti A. Binsfeld, and Robert P. Webber
May 24, 2023
In what seems to be an effort to facilitate options for foreign nationals and employers, the Biden administration has quietly rolled out some relatively obscure policy changes. Employers, however, may be unaware of immigration options (including these relatively new options) that can help address labor shortages. The purpose of this article is to highlight a few strategies.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Immigration Law
Minnesota’s racially biased jury pools and how to fix them
Bethany O’Neill, Cresston Gackle, and David Schultz
Apr 01, 2023
Changing racial demographics in the state, coupled with the practices currently used to determine jury pools, are empaneling juries that are not racially representative. The result is that trials often fail to produce justice and perhaps even violate the Sixth Amendment.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Diversity
  • Courts
SCOTUS: Bankruptcy doesn’t erase debts incurred by the fraud of another
George H. Singer
Apr 01, 2023
The United States Supreme Court recently answered the question of whether a debtor in bankruptcy can discharge a debt resulting from another person’s fraud, even if the debtor is not aware of the fraud.
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  • CATEGORY
  • Bankruptcy
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