Minnesota Lawyer Blog

I just checked the judicial-elections portion of the Secretary of State's website and so far today it looks like there's not much new to report. It's likely to be a slow day for filings on the eve of the 4th of July holiday, with everyone apparently thinking about barbecues and time on the lake rather than judicial races. In fact, many have trickled out of their offices already, except for, of course, us poor ink-stained wretches and you, our loyal blog reader.

I had hoped to bring you news of the races for the Minnesota Supreme Court. As I mentioned in a prior post, challengers have filed against both justices up for election. Information is easily available on Justice Lorie Gildea's opponent, Rick Gallo, who has worked in the Appellate Division of the Minnesota State Public Defender's Office for more than two decades. However, I was able to unearth very little in my preliminary search for information on Justice Paul Anderson's challenger, Alan Lawrence Nelson.

In order to bring some further illumination on his candidacy, I contacted Mr. Nelson yesterday at the phone number provided on his filing. It went right to voice-mail. This morning, I received the following response via e-mail: "I can appreciate your desire for timely information, but I am deferring all questions until my website is fully active on July 16th. The website will have a full resume/CV and biography section."

He also invited me to shoot him an e-mail with any further questions after that date. In the meantime, here's a link to his website, which currently contains only a sentence stating that it will become active on July 16, which, incidentally, is the day after the filing period ends at the Secretary of State's Office.

We will provide more information on this and other races when we have it. In the meantime, enjoy some well-deserved time off. We will not be posting tomorrow, so enjoy that hot dog or burger, and of course ...