May - June 2002

Posted May 28, 2002

Faculty

“At one time, there was an understanding that holding a copyright didn’t give you undifferentiated ownership…You’d get a right to certain things, and the public had rights to certain things. That bargain has shifted in a major way,” says Niels Schaumann, explaining the effect of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in by Peter Ritter’s May 22 CityPages article, “The .14 Cent Solution.” Ritter’s article discusses the threat proposed music industry royalties may have on independent Internet radio station.

Posted May 22, 2002

Faculty

“The ‘lack of specific warnings’ defense may justify a lack of action before the airliners hit the World Trade Center, but it can’t explain away the lies that were told to Congress and the American people after Sept. 11 to justify the administration’s war on civil liberties,” writes Peter Erlinder, in a May 22 Star Tribune opinion piece, criticizing the Bush administration’s quick justification of the USA Patriot Act after the events of Sept. 11. Erlinder asserts that in light of the information the administration knew before Sept. 11, the Patriot Act was “passed under false pretenses.” He writes, “Recent revelations about the Sept. 11 tragedy prove that existing investigative powers were effective. The Bush administration used its own failure to act on the warnings it had received to justify grabbing even more power, at the expense of our civil liberties, by deceiving Congress and the American people.” Erlinder’s article was also published online at Common Dreams News Center at www.commondreams.org/views02/0520-05.htm.
 

Posted May 20, 2002

Alumni

Andrea Niemi, ’79, Linda Olup, ’77, and Nancy Zalusky Berg, ’80, are “among the most hailed family law attorneys practicing in the Twin Cities,” writes Jennifer Franklin in a May 2002 Minnesota Monthly story about divorce attorneys. Along with Susan Lach and Susan Rhode, Niemi, Olup, and Zalusky Berg are “flat out aggressive about going after their clients’ fair share,” writes Franklin.

Posted May 6, 2002

Faculty

Companies can’t use joint ventures to avoid anti-trust laws, and “a lot depends on how concentrated an industry may be, and what market share the players may have,” says Prof. Dan Kleinberger in an April 25 St. Paul Pioneer Press story by Lee Egerstrom on the increasing number of partnerships in the global food industry. The driving force is market power, writes Egerstrom, who says the most noteworthy deal is between Twin Cities-based Cargill, the world’s biggest agribusiness company, and CHS Cooperatives, second-largest farmer-owned agribusiness.

Alumni

Four attorneys who are graduates of William Mitchell College of Law are among 10 attorneys named “Up-and-Coming Attorneys 2002” by Minnesota Lawyer in the paper’s April 29 issue. They are Thomas R. Bennerotte,’00, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi; Rep. Kevin P. Goodno,’99, Gunhus, Grinnell, Klinger, Swenson & Guy, Moorhead, and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives; Iain A. McIntyre,’00, Altera Law Group; and Amy Xu,’97, Dorsey & Whitney. In her editor’s note, Associate Editor Barbara L. Jones,’82, writes that the attorneys, all with five or fewer years of practice, were chosen “for their stunning accomplishments and their service to the profession.”

The events of Sept. 11 and the slowdown of the economy negatively affected the legal job market, but they probably won’t have much long-term impact, says Gina Sauer, ’90, in an April 29 cover story by Michelle Lore in Minnesota Lawyer on recent improvement in the legal employment marketplace. Says Sauer: “Fewer offers were made and firms were more conservative in hiring.... But we are more even-keeled here in the Midwest. There has not been a dramatic change here.... I predict things to remain pretty solid.”