Kristine M. Boylan

Kristine M. Boylan is one of two children of U.S. Mag. Judge Arthur J. Boylan (D. Minn.) practicing litigation in the Twin Cities (the other being Arthur, Jr.).

Kristine embodies the evolution of Minnesota litigators’ practice with her origins from early childhood in a small-town Minnesota legal practice to her current position, a partner with a complex business litigation and world-wide IP practice at high-powered Minneapolis-based intellectual property law firm of Merchant & Gould (founding in the Twin Cities in 1900).

Do you think that being “the judge’s daughter” has given you an advantage in your practice?

I’m not sure.  I know that it has historically forced me to work harder to prove my own merit.  Being raised by a father who was first a lawyer, then a judge, has definitely given me a good intuitive and instinctive sense of the law and litigation – in all substantive areas.  The breadth of perspective from being “the judge’s daughter” has made me a better lawyer.

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Minnesota Litigator has been known, from time to time, to wander extraterritorially — outside Minnesota law — in particular for interesting developments in federal law, which sometimes are relevant to Minnesota litigators and Minnesotans generally.  One of the more generous and deep-thinking legal bloggers out there is Max Kennerly, a personal injury lawyer in Philadelphia who summarizes his recent post as follows:

To summarize: when it comes to manufacturing federal court jurisdiction to aid a defendant in a class action, an unincorporated association shall be deemed to be a citizen of the State where it has its principal place of business; when it comes to manufacturing federal court jurisdiction to aid a defendant in an individual lawsuit, an unincorporated association’s principal place of business is irrelevant. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose.

When lawyers’ resources are stretched beyond they breaking point, they crack. The same is of course true of judges and even judicial systems. When system resources are stressed, systems innovate as a matter of self-preservation.  So state and federal court systems both sometimes seem to innovate ways of turning away cases.

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An Outhouse Deep In the Woods Without Electricity or Internet: Privacy’s Last Refuge

Courts are paid for by tax-payers.  Laws “are and must be public.”  So when ex-Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura invokes Minnesota law and sues in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, how much of this proceeding should be private?  A lot less than has been the case, argues Leslie Davis, a retired U.S. Army veteran.  Not so fast, U.S. District Court Judge Arthur J. Boylan (D. Minn.) answered quickly…We will have to see whether Mr. Davis or anyone else follows the requisite process to intervene and shed the light of public view on more of the Ventura case.

For the past year or so, I have had the huge honor and pleasure of the assistance of Emily McNee as a legal intern as she worked her way through University of Minnesota Law School with great success, amazing energy, and, all the while, a sense of humor.

Emily not only performed extremely well in school, she put up with me, and she also managed to write a great law review note on a very timely issue:  the scope of protections afforded to teachers’ speech on social media sites like Facebook and the like.

If you are interested in how social media, privacy, and free speech protections might be integrated, adapted, and/or reconciled, I strongly recommend the read.

Minnesota lawyers as well as lawyers nationwide are under unprecedented economic pressure these days and they have been for several years now.   (On June 3, 2013, the Atlantic Monthly said that Minnesota ranked 11th out of the 50 states for worst job market for law school graduates, with nearly three new lawyers for every single available job.)

Not coincidentally, ethics complaints and disciplinary actions against Minnesota lawyers are up.  (Here is the latest public petition for discipline.)  Given the pressure and the stakes, mistakes and wrong-doing are unfortunate and inevitable.

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In a case previously covered here on Minnesota Litigator, Mike Unger gave some thought to the difficult question then pending before the Minnesota Supreme Court as to “whether traditional notions of proof of proximate cause should apply in medical malpractice cases in which there is a negligent delay of diagnosis and treatment of cancer.”  It is all about time and probability.

The Minnesota Supreme Court, in a decision by out-going Justice Paul H. Anderson, held earlier this week that “Minnesota law allows a patient to recover damages when a physician’s negligence causes the patient to lose a chance of recovery or survival.”

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