The Minnesota Courts are experiencing a backlog of cases like never before.  After a three-month hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and Emergency Orders, Hennepin, McLeod, Olmsted and Ramsey counties began jury trials in felony criminal cases on a pilot basis. No other criminal trials can take place before July 6 and no civil trials can be held until Sept. 1. That will mean that civil cases have been put on hold at least six months in 2020. The civil docket will be directly affected … [Read more...]

The financial world is abuzz about the fact that many major players in the broker-dealer world are leaving the Protocol for Broker Recruiting. There was a time where broker-dealers regularly litigated over non-solicit and non-competition agreements with their former registered representatives. There was a sea change event in 2004 when three major players created and joined this Protocol for Broker Recruiting, setting the ground rules for the transition in employment of registered … [Read more...]

Mediation works. Every now and then there will be reported some statistics about the success of mediation in resolving lawsuits. Recently, FINRA Dispute Resolution published its year-end statistics regarding cases involving customer disputes. In 2018, there were 3,064 cases filed. Of those, only 647 went through an arbitration hearing, either with arbitrators serving with in-person hearings or a simplified arbitration using only documents. Almost 2,500 cases reached a resolution through … [Read more...]