Lockridge Grindal Nauen lawyers were thrilled to attend the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers Gala as a Silver Sponsor! We celebrate the scholarship recipients and are committed to doing our best to advance and support Black lawyers in Minnesota.
LGN Attorneys attended the American Antitrust Institute’s Awards Dinner to celebrate Senior Counsel Joe Bourne, who is this year’s Honoree for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement by a Young Lawyer! Congratulations, Joe, and spectacular work!
LGN is proud to support Heidi Silton in her role as Chair of the American Antitrust Institute Enforcement Awards. Heidi has chaired these awards for the last several years. Awards were given out this year on November 9, 2022, in Washington D.C. More information can be found here: https://www.antitrustinstitute.org/event/antitrust-awards-night-2022/
LGN Attorney Eura Chang recently interviewed Chief Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown of the US District Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana. The interview was conducted as part of the Federal Bar Association’s Diversity & Inclusion Judicial Spotlight.
To learn more about Chief Judge Brown, and to read the full interview, follow this link.
Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P. is proud to announce that our firm has been ranked a Metropolitan Tier 1 law firm for Minneapolis by Best Lawyers® in the following practice areas: Environmental Law, Environmental Litigation, Labor & Employment Litigation, Mass Tort Litigation & Plaintiff Class Actions, and Plaintiff Product Liability Litigation. Congrats to all our attorneys and staff who helped us achieve this distinction, as well as the individual attorneys who were named to the Best Lawyers in America® list! For more information on the U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” rankings, please visit the “Best Law Firms” website.
The litigation and lobbying firm Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P. announced today that Dan Larson is the firm’s new Director of Government Relations.
“We are pleased to announce that Dan is assuming the leadership of the firm’s government relations team. Dan has been a steady and trusted leader for our firm and our clients for many years,” said LGN Partner Charlie Nauen. “Dan will build upon the success of our firm’s government relations practice of more than 40 years as he leads the premier team in the state.”
Dan has extensive experience in government relations. Before being elected to the Minnesota legislature, he worked for four years as a member of the firm’s government relations team. He then served eight years in the Minnesota House of Representatives and two years in the Minnesota Senate. Dan returned to the firm in 2008, where he has been the Director of State and Local Government Affairs, providing leadership, management, and oversight of the firm’s state government relations team. He has legislative expertise in the areas of taxes, public health, technology, economic development, labor, pensions, and issues faced by tribal governments. Dan has close working relationships with members of the legislature, the governor’s office and administration, and city and county officials.
“With Dan’s wise counsel and intricate understanding of the legislature and political dynamics within the state, LGN clients will continue to be successfully represented at the Capitol as the legislature works to address the complex challenges facing our state during the 2023 Legislative Session and beyond,” said LGN Partner Ted Grindal.
Dan is a former member of the American Cancer Society Leadership Board for Minnesota. As a cancer survivor, he was the inspiration for the creation of the Anti-Cancer Caucus and laid the foundation for its success. Dan has also been recognized by the public health community for his work on anti-smoking efforts.
For those wishing to contact Dan, he can be reached at dglarson@locklaw.com or 612-596-4013.
LGN Attorney Joe Bourne will be honored for his work on In re Pork Antitrust Litigation at the American Antitrust Institute’s Awards Night on November 9, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Joe was selected by a committee comprised of current and former private practitioners, government attorneys, and economists for his work in the Pork case. In that litigation, Joe has taken on a leading role in discovery of the defendants by all plaintiffs, discovery of the direct purchaser plaintiffs, coordinating discovery and court filings with all parties, briefing and arguing motions, and addressing the court at status conferences.
LGN attorneys Joe Bourne and Kristen Marttila, on behalf of the Committee to Support the Antitrust Laws (COSAL), along with Randy Stutz on behalf of the American Antitrust Institute (AAI), submitted an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit today in support of the plaintiffs in Sidibe v. Sutter Health, a certified class action that was tried to a jury.
The plaintiffs in the litigation below claimed they paid supracompetitive prices for health insurance premiums because of Sutter Health’s anticompetitive conduct. The plaintiffs alleged Sutter Health violated the federal and California antitrust laws when it forced health plans to negotiate with its hospitals on a systemwide (rather than hospital-by-hospital) basis beginning in the late 1990s or early 2000s and to accept anticompetitive provisions in its contracts.
In their brief, COSAL and AAI argue that the district court erred in excluding certain pre-class period evidence that was contemporaneous with the defendant’s consideration and implementation of the challenged restraint of trade. This exclusion was error because evidence regarding the history of the restraint and the reasons for its adoption are relevant to the jury’s assessment of a Sherman Act claim, and is independently sufficient to demonstrate a violation under California’s Cartwright Act. The brief also argues that the district court erred in allowing the jury to consider evidence of market power and market definition from the perspective of the individual insured, rather than from the perspective of the health plans, which the Ninth Circuit and other courts of appeal have recognized are the actual payors within the healthcare marketplace.
LGN is a longtime member of COSAL, which was founded in 1986 to promote and support the enactment, preservation, and enforcement of a strong body of antitrust laws in the United States. Ms. Marttila serves as the vice-chair of COSAL’s amicus committee.
LGN partner Susan Ellingstad co-presented an hour-long seminar entitled FLSA Overview and Recent Developments to a nationwide audience of current and incoming federal law clerks. The event was part of the Federal Bar Association’s ongoing series developed by the Judiciary Division’s Federal Judicial Law Clerk Committee to help judicial clerks familiarize themselves with substantive areas of law they may encounter for the first time as clerks.
Partner Kristen Marttila represented LGN at a celebration of the investiture of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson hosted by Twin Cities Diversity In Practice and the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers. The event included a fantastic panel discussion with three Minnesota trailblazers, Justices Alan Page (ret.) and Natalie Hudson and Judge Pamela Alexander (ret.).