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| The Minnesota Lawyer
Placement Protocol New
lawyers often find it difficult to determine what type of law they
would like to practice. The
question is often so puzzling that new attorneys now go through hours
of angst and waste years of their lives doing something that irritates
them, drives them crazy, or, at worst, they hate.
Indeed, the phenomenon affects even those considered more experienced
attorneys. But
hope to ameliorate the problem of unfulfilling legal careers and to
find for attorneys the type of practice most suited to their individual
abilities is not lost. In the
same spirit that gave rise to Minnesota’s contributions to medicine
(artificial heart valves), psychology (MMPIi test), machinery (the
snowmobile) and food products (SPAM), a local university has developed
a scientific method that has shown promising success in laboratory
testing. Attorneys are designated
for certain legal fields by the manner in which they fish for walleye.* RESULTS
OF TESTING Plaintiff’s
personal injury attorneys go fishing by catching as many fish as possible
of whatever type and call it a successful day if 42 percent of the
fish are walleyes, which means that they can cover the cost of boat
rental, beer, minnows, GPS system, and a new putter for that golf
trip to Arizona. A plaintiff’s no-fault attorney uses the same
process but after the attorney catches just a few walleye, the number
of walleye in the live well will exponentially increase to 2,000 over
the legal jurisdictional limit. A
plaintiff’s workers’ compensation attorney catches a group of fish,
as long as it contains at least one walleye, makes a fee request for
time spent catching all of the fish, and then settles the fee claim
for the time actually spent catching the walleye.
Crafty workers’ compensation plaintiff’s attorneys get nonlawyers
to do all the fishing, cleaning, and cooking but will eat the end
result. Plaintiff’s railroad
injury attorneys get to know the people running the fish hatcheries
and wait to be told when the walleye are released before swooping
in with huge nets to catch all of the fish they can. Personal
injury defense attorneys hire a guide from a service that charges
$1,500 for 30 minutes of time and the guide, miraculously, always
manages to find a walleye, even if the walleye sometimes looks suspiciously
like a northern pike. Really smart personal injury defense attorneys
make their junior colleagues do the above process and then, if one
of the associates miraculously catches a walleye, the more experienced
attorney keeps the fillets. No-fault
defense attorneys fish for walleye by determining when a reasonable
fishing season should end, (usually eight to twelve weeks after it
started unless they objectively find a walleye) fish until that time
whether or not they catch a walleye, and then describe it as a successful
fishing season. Workers’ compensation defense attorneys do not
fish because they have never seen a bona
fide walleye, and even if they saw a fish that looked like a walleye,
it really was a maling MORE
RESULTS This revolutionary technique has also proven effective in several other legal fields. Appellate lawyers no longer go fishing. They wait until all the fish are caught, cleaned and cooked and then argue about what would have been better methods for doing all of the above. Experienced appellate lawyers will at least see who is on the panel of state game wardens before they start their arguing why the fishing limit is not really a limit. Environmental lawyers don’t fish; they wait on shore and examine the statistics regarding the location of the fish caught and then advocate new fishing regulations ensuring that only lawyers from their firm can catch walleyes next year. Bankruptcy lawyers fish only after spending 90 days arguing over which of the recently purchased fishing boats must be liquidated to pay for cabin rental and beer. Experienced bankruptcy lawyers will make sure it was the boat the associates were going to use. Family law attorneys enjoy fishing for walleye until it comes to dividing up the fish. Some family law attorneys argue that they deserve an equal share of the total catch of the day since one boat supported the other boat with sandwiches and beer. Other family law attorneys will counter that each boat caught its own fish and brought its own fish into the cleaning house and therefore each boat should take away only what it brought in. Often family law attorneys will dispute the possession of frozen fillets in a freezer years after a fishing season is over. Legislative lawyers and lobbyists do not fish, but believe that it is only a matter of time until the walleye really mean business and form their own political action committee. adr neutrals do not fish either but go out on a boat to get others to share the lake and then send a bill for their time to everyone who bought licenses that season. CONCLUSION The Minnesota Lawyer Placement Protocol has been found
to be the single best method of determining the type of legal vocation
for an attorney in Minnesota and is pending federal approval. Other
promising methods are being researched in other states such as Wisconsin
(how a lawyer avoids speeding tickets from Wisconsin state troopers),
Iowa (how a lawyer argues that corn and hogs are the backbone of the
American economy), South Dakota (how a lawyer takes economic advantage
of out-of-state pheasant hunters), and North Dakota (how a lawyer
justifies living in North Dakota). *No
actual walleye were harmed in NATHAN
KRAHN is an attorney with Rider Bennett in |
