Minnesota Opera invites MNAPABA to its annual fundraiser event. Beyond the Gala is an immersive experience featuring reunions with friends, a live musical performance, dinner, and dancing, inspired by the season's closing show Carmen. Funds raised will ensure all education and training programs are available free of charge, help launch new people-centered initiatives and partnerships, and build on a legacy of cultural, administrative and artistic innovation. Minnesota Opera aims to empower all voices, strengthen bonds between people of all backgrounds and identities, and create a space of healing, refuge, and hope that inspires a sense of authentic belonging in everyone who enters.

For more information or to purchase tickets or sponsor a table, please click here. The RSVP deadline is March 11.

Join members of the judiciary, the Office of the Governor of Minnesota, and Mitchell Hamline School of Law for a discussion of pathways to the judiciary, including the personal experiences of several of the panelists, including the Honorable Anne McKeig, Honorable Michael Burns, Honorable Sarah McBroom, Honorable Peter Reyes, Erin Sindberg Porter (Minnesota Judicial Selection Committee), and Adam Miller (Office of the Governor of Minnesota).

For more information or to register, please click here. This event will take place in-person but will include a remote option.

MNAPABA, along with several other NAPABA affiliate organizations, is co-sponsoring the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association's (GAPABA) virtual Chief Legal Officers panel. The panel will feature David Zapolsky (Amazon), Rachel Gonzales (Starbucks), John Sullivan (Costco), Marie Oh Huber (eBay), Priya Aiyar (American Airlines), and Tony West (Uber). The panel will be moderated by Michael Wu (Bath & Body Works). For more information or to register, please click here.

Available in all formats 
Date: January 28, 2022, 5-6:15 PM CST 
Location: Virtual
Register: Here
1-CLE Bias Credit applied for
Further details on Zoom Link to follow

MABL is proud to host a fireside chat with former federal prosecutor, CNN senior legal analyst, and SiriusXM host, Laura Coates, to discuss her new book, Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Justice (Simon & Schuster). Weekday morning 5 Eyewitness News (KSTP) anchor, Brandi Powell, will conduct the informal interview with Laura. 

Envision that your car was stolen. The thief is caught, and you’re asked to testify against him. And yet, when you go to court to serve as a witness for the prosecution, you’re the one who is arrested and hauled off in handcuffs. 

This is the opening scene for Laura Coates’s stunning debut, in an urgent look at our criminal justice system. Through Coates’s experience as a Black female prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, readers have a front-row seat in the courtroom as a parade of Black and brown defendants are hauled in and systemic racism plays out. And it’s not just the defendants—like the witness who had his car stolen and had crossed the border illegally twenty years prior, but has since lived a lawful life in the U.S. Readers see Coates struggle with her duty to report him to ICE. Or watch as she is trained by a white male colleague to unfairly interrogate a young Black defendant. Or relive Coates overseeing a female judge victim-blaming a teenage sexual assault survivor based on her courtroom attire. Experience Coates’s shock on her first day in court, where across 73 cases, every single defendant was Black. 

With vision and grace, Just Pursuit reveals the tension between the idealism of the law and the lived reality of working within the parameters of a flawed system, exposing the chasm between what is right and what is lawful.

Coates will discuss her deeply personal memoir that’s also reminiscent of page-turning legal thrillers, Laura Coates wrestles with the racism and sexism she experienced, questioning how the law intersects with modern civil rights. 

Through the prism of Laura Coates’s experience, MABL seeks to shine the light on a system that perpetuates bias and unfairness. Join us for this riveting and crucial conversation. 

About Laura Coates
Among her roles, Laura Coates is currently an adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law. She served as Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and a Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, specializing in the enforcement of voting rights throughout the United States. In private practice, Laura was an intellectual property litigator with an expertise in First Amendment and media law.

Laura Coates brings impressive credentials to this hard-hitting analysis. First, she worked in the Civil Rights Division as a voting-rights attorney. Then she switched to become an Assistant United States Prosecutor for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and this book covers that experience. She has since left and now is a Senior Legal Analyst at CNN, a George Washington University law professor, and has her own talk radio show on SiriusXM.

A graduate of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and the University of Minnesota Law School, Coates resides outside of Washington, DC, with her husband and two children. Visit: https://www.lauracoates.com/.

About Brandi Powell
Brandi Powell is a weekday Morning News Anchor and has been part of the 5 Eyewitness News team since January 2014. Brandi has won multiple team Emmy awards and earned individual Emmy nominations, most recently an Upper Midwest Emmy nomination for Anchoring in 2020.

In 2020, Brandi launched and reported an in-depth series called Conversations About Racism and the Road to Equality. The 3-part series included Understanding Racism, The Talk and Youth Activists & Education. Her team won a Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists Page One Award for Special Project/In-depth Series in 2021. Visit https://kstp.com/news/brandi-

In honor of Black History Month, MABL is hosting two events that allow members to learn about current and past social justice issues and hopefully provide CLE bias credits. 

The first event is an open forum discussion about the documentary "On These Grounds." The documentary traces a viral video of a white police officer assaulting a Black teenager seated at her desk, which sparked a national conversation and fueled a movement. The film shines a light on students, educators, and organizers who are creating an equitable, just future for Black girls everywhere. Watch the trailer.

The discussion will be moderated by Kevin Lindsey, Minnesota Humanities Center CEO and Founder of Lindsey Law and Consulting. The documentary will be made available through a secure streaming platform for a 10-day window prior to the event.

Register now. 1-CLE Bias Credit applied for. Further details regarding the zoom link as well as viewing details will be provided at a later day and time.  

For more information or to register, please click here.

The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility invites volunteers to serve on the 4th District Ethics Committee (Hennepin Count). The Committee investigates complaints of lawyers' alleged unprofessional conduct and submits reports and recommendations regarding those complaints. This is a great opportunity to contribute to your community, learn the ethics rules applicable to lawyers, and help ensure the integrity of the legal system. Candidates need not be lawyers or work in the legal profession to qualify--members of the public are strongly encouraged to apply. Training and support are provided.

For more information or to apply, please click here.

Join the Federal Bar Association (FBA), Minnesota Chapter for its annual Affinity Bar Meet and Greet event. This is an important event that allows building strong connections between the FBA Minnesota Chapter and the Affinity Bars. There will be a trivia game for attendees to get to know the various affinity organizations. To RSVP, please email Keiko Sugisaka (Keiko.Sugisaka@maslon.com). 

Join the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers (MABL) for a virtual gala to honor their 2021 scholarship recipients. This year's gala will feature a fireside conversation with The Honorable Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General, and The Honorable Monique H. Worrell, State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court for the State of Florida. For more information or to register, please click here.

Please join the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association for a webinar featuring federal judges, practitioners, and former members of the District of Minnesota’s magistrate-judge merit selection panels, as they discuss the diverse work of a magistrate judge and demystify the application and selection process.

This event aims to raise awareness about the magistrate judge role and encourage interest in forthcoming vacancies by many qualified applicants from diverse professional and personal backgrounds. It will also highlight the broad range of legal experiences and pathways through the profession that can lead to the magistrate judge position.

Tara Norgard will moderate panel discussions featuring Chief Judge John Tunheim, Judge Susan Richard Nelson, Magistrate Judge Becky Thorson, Magistrate Judge Tony Leung, and Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright, as well as law clerks to magistrate judges and representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Federal Public Defender.

The Zoom event will feature a two-part panel discussion focused upon the job duties and selection process, to be followed by smaller group ”Q&A” break-out discussions with current and former magistrate judges. 1.0 general CLE credit will be sought.

For more information, or to register, please click here.