Don's Blog
Don McNeil | Mediation Blog
Don's Blog
MCNEIL Mediation
Alexander Hamilton Died from Choosing a Bad Mediator
Choosing the right mediator for resolving your dispute is important and can make all the difference in the world. In the case of Alexander Hamilton, he chose the wrong mediator and it cost him his life. The Aaron Burr v. Alexander Hamilton duel has received recent...
What Chief Justice Sandy Keith Told Me
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander MacDonald "Sandy" Keith died last month. I served as a law clerk at the Court when the Chief joined as the junior associate justice in 1989. He was the first person to hold office in each of the three...
The Notorious RBG – And the Honorable Mary Jeanne Coyne
Our country is reflecting on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s career and contributions to our country both as an advocate and as a jurist. She went to law school during a time that the legal profession consisted mostly of men. Justice Ginsberg graduated at the top of her...
Two Critical Lessons that Lance Armstrong Learned in Mediation with the Postal Service
This summer, ESPN rolled out another segment of the critically-acclaimed “30 for 30”, this time featuring cyclist Lance Armstrong. For cycling fans, this documentary provided some inside views about a doping scandal that rocked the sport. For those working with...
Mediation During an Epic Court Backlog of Cases
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...
Tiger King: A few important things about mediation we learned from Joe Exotic
Last month, just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, Netflix released an eight-part documentary called Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness which gave us some jaw-dropping insight into some outrageous litigation twists and turns involving...
Mediation in the Time of COVID-19
Everyone knows by now that the Center for Disease Control is responding to an outbreak of a respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus that was first detected in China and which has now been found in more than 100 locations internationally, including Minnesota....
Robert DeNiro’s Character in Oscar-Nominated Irishman is a Lousy Mediator
Nominations for 92nd Academy Awards were announced Monday morning with one notable epic film “The Irishman” up for Best Picture. This classic mob movie collected 10 nominations, with Martin Scorsese receiving his ninth nomination for best director. “The...
The Big News in the Protocol for Broker Recruiting and the Effect on Non-Solicit Cases
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...