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A New Leaf: Cannabis Legalization in Minnesota
- Wednesday, November 15, noon - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#494573). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speakers: Jen Randolph Reise and James Gempeler, North Star Law Group
Description: This spring, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, kicking off a process of expunging past convictions for marijuana possession and creating a regulatory framework for businesses to apply for licenses to legally grow, manufacture, and sell to the public. North Star Law Group partners James Gempeler, a criminal defense attorney, and Jen Randolph Reise, a business and regulatory attorney, explain the main points of the new cannabis law, including changes to criminal laws; expungement of past cannabis convictions (automatic and non); upcoming licensing regime for cannabis businesses; and regulation of already-legal hemp-derived THC edibles and beverages.
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How Evolving Everyday Technology is Impacting Civil and Criminal Litigation
- Tuesday, October 24, noon - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#490638). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Description: Everyday technology in 2023 can be smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, fitness trackers, and digital watches. But it can also be more exotic emerging technology like smart speakers and even the automobile in your garage. And these devices are connected to online cloud accounts like Apple’s iCloud and your Google account, plus other third-party accounts for messages, email, documents, photographs, commerce, etc. We will discuss what forms the mobile evidence takes and how experts recover and preserve it. Also, we will describe the best practices experts use, and how to effectively present evidence for success with litigation in court.
- Recording of presentation. Slides of Presentation.
- AI's Transformation of the Practice of Law, Access to Justice, and the Judiciary
- Tuesday, September 12, noon - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#490638). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speaker: Damien Riehl, Fastcase, Docket Alarm, and vLex Group.
Description: Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, GPT-4 and other Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming the legal profession. And rapidly: GPT-4 not only passed the bar exam, it beat 90% of humans. This discussion, led by litigator, coder, and AI-builder Damien Riehl - will explore how AI is already transforming litigation practice, as well as ways that the judiciary might utilize AI to better administer justice.
- Recording of presentation.
- Reducing Stigma to Avoid Burnout
- Tuesday, August 15, 2023, noon - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One elimination of bias CLE credit has been approved (#489674). This CLE is also available for on-demand credit. Please see our On-Demand CLEs page.
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Speaker: Judith M. Rush, Outreach Manager, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.
Description: In serving clients, the profession, and the system of justice, lawyers bring intellect, passion, and skill to their work, carry significant workloads, and work long hours in close relationship with others solving difficult problems. Lawyers seek not only justice and successful resolution for clients and others, but also fairness, meaning, and intrinsic and external rewards for themselves. These aspects of a lawyers’ work can cause chronic stress, resulting in burnout, poor physical health, or other health challenges such as anxiety, depression, substance use, addiction, and mental illness. Effectively managing workplace stress is critical to lawyer health, competence, and ethical responsibility. The stigma attached to burnout and other physical or mental health concerns as well as implicit and explicit bias can make it difficult for lawyers to get help. This program explores what burnout is, how our work as legal professionals contributes to burnout, and how to head off burnout, break the stigma, and get help for burnout to regain our spark and enjoy our lives.
- Recording of presentation. Handouts: CLE Materials Packet, Slides Handout.
- The Evolving Practice of Racial Exclusion: How White Minnesota Residents Adapted to State and Federal Court Decisions and Legislation During the 20th Century
- Friday, August 11, 2023, noon - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#488664). This CLE is also available for on-demand credit. Please see our On-Demand CLEs page.
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Description: Whites living in Minnesota during the 20th century had many ways to exclude African Americans from their neighborhoods, towns, and cities, but over time the legal methods they employed were affected by various state and federal court decisions and legislation. Sometimes the decisions and laws affirmed and strengthened the tools Whites had and sometimes they weakened or banned them altogether. White residents adapted to this shifting legal terrain, however, and managed to keep their communities racially homogenous, or largely so, and that is part of the historical background for understanding the state's racial disparities in the present day.
- Recording of presentation. Slides of presentation.
- Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Remedies
- July 11, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#488662). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speaker: James (Jim) R. Mayer, Managing Attorney, Great North Innocence Project
Description: Great North Innocence Project Managing Attorney Jim Mayer discusses the problem of wrongful convictions, including common causes and some potential solutions. Jim presents these issues in the context of two recent Great North Innocence Project case successes.
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- Slavery in Minnesota: Yes, We Had it Here
- June 13, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#487993). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speakers: Marshall Tanick, Meyer Njus Tanick, and A.L. Brown, Capitol City Law Group, LLC
Description: The presentation reviewed the legal history of racial issues in Minnesota dating back to pre-statehood days in the mid-19th century, including the infamous
Dred Scott case arising in this state, which was one of the chief precipitants for the Civil War, through pioneering Minnesota laws regarding voting, public accommodations, housing and civil rights, to contemporary issues of education and other matters.
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- Mapping Prejudice and Racial Covenants in the Twin Cities
- May 9, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#486619). This CLE is also available for on-demand credit. Please see our On-Demand CLEs page.
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Speakers: Kirsten Delegard, Project Director, Mapping Prejudice Project
Description: Professor Delegard highlights current efforts to remove restrictive covenants from modern leases and titles and discusses the impact these covenants have had on the Jewish community and communities of color in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas.
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- The Mayflower Compact and Its Impact on U.S. Law
- March 23, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#483001). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speaker:
Julia L. Ernst, Associate Dean for Teaching & Engagement and Professor, University of North Dakota School of Law
Description: The year 2020 marked the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower Compact, signed by the Pilgrims aboard the ship Mayflower anchored offshore from land that would become Plymouth Colony. This short and simple manuscript served as the historical precedent for future seminal documents in the formation of the American governmental and legal systems, including the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Articles of Confederation, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Northwest Ordinance, and particularly the U.S. Constitution. As our nation relatively recently commemorated the quatercentennial of the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, this presentation explores the influence the Mayflower Compact has had in the United States throughout the past four centuries. As our country strives to increase civic education and foster greater participation in the democratic process, this presentation calls attention to the impact that the Mayflower Compact and other pivotal documents have had in shaping our constitutional and legal framework in the United States. This CLE was presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibit "Join In! The Rise of Self-Governance and American Organizing from the Mayflower Compact to the Modern Day," hosted at the State Law Library from March 20-31, 2023.
- Recording of presentation. Handouts: Julia L. Ernst, The Mayflower Compact: Celebrating Four Hundred Years of Influence on U.S. Democracy, 95 N.D. L. Rev. 1 (2020).
- Demystifying CHIPS/TPR Matters for Non-Practitioners
- February 21, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One standard CLE credit has been approved (#480456). Credit is available for those who attended this session when it was presented. On-demand credit is not currently available.
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Speaker: Connor Burton, Messick Law, PLLC
Description: This CLE provides an overview of the Child Protection practice area for practitioners who may not otherwise practice in the area but may find their cases impacted by CHIPS/TPR process. The session will provide a foundational knowledge of the rules and statutes governing these matters from the initial petition through an appeal of an order terminating parental rights.
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- Suicide Awareness and Prevention
- January 24, 2023, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- CLE Credit: One elimination of bias CLE credit has been approved (#479603). This CLE is also available for on-demand credit. Please see our On-Demand CLEs page.
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Speakers: Joan Bibelhausen, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, and Faith Amdahl
Description: The stress lawyers face is a predictor for depression, and untreated depression is the #1 predictor for suicide. Lawyers must also deal with the fact that clients can be suicidal. This program will help you understand the facts and myths about suicide; recognize signs and indicators for clinical depression, anxiety, and suicide; and provide resources and a protocol for offering and seeking help to prevent suicide.
- Recording of Presentation. Presentation Slides. Handouts: Suicide Prevention: Every Lawyer's Opportunity; Suicide Risk Factors; Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers - How Can LCL Help?; LCL Resources; LCL Supplemental Resources: Suicide Prevention
Please note: The views, opinions, and statements made at the CLE sessions are solely those of the speakers and do not reflect the views of the State Law Library or Minnesota Judicial Branch. In order to provide these courses free of charge, the CLE speakers volunteer their time to prepare and present. They are not compensated by the State Law Library or Minnesota Judicial Branch.