Articles and commentary from Madgett Law, LLC — client-facing legal writing plus the Practice Lab, free practice-management writing for other lawyers.https://www.madgettlaw.com/en-ushttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/run-it-yourself-then-let-the-client-choose/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/run-it-yourself-then-let-the-client-choose/The practical stack for running Qwen on firm hardware — models, runtimes, quantization, what fits in how much memory — and the client-facing tier election it makes possible. If the client picks the tier, the routing has to enforce it.Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabtoolDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/chatrie-geofence-warrants-minnesota-got-there-first/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/chatrie-geofence-warrants-minnesota-got-there-first/In Chatrie v. United States, a divided Supreme Court held that pulling a person's location data from Google is a search. Minnesota's Legislature required a warrant for exactly that in 2014 — before Carpenter, and long before this term.Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-practice-of-law-in-2035/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-practice-of-law-in-2035/Most legal futurism is unfalsifiable, which is why it is always half-right and never useful. Twelve predictions about how AI reshapes legal practice — each with the mechanism driving it and the specific evidence that would prove it wrong.Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/monsanto-durnell-fifra-preemption-minnesota-farms/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/monsanto-durnell-fifra-preemption-minnesota-farms/The Supreme Court held that federal pesticide law preempts a state failure-to-warn claim over Roundup's label. The rule it used came from a case about a device made in Fridley — and Minnesota's own statute makes the federal label binding here.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/how-do-you-know-it-works/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/how-do-you-know-it-works/Nobody in law builds evaluation sets, so nobody can tell a workflow that got better from one that quietly got worse. Ground truth, the metrics that actually matter per task type, and why cost-weighted error is the only honest score in a law office.Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabtoolDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/the-courthouse-door-is-narrowing/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/the-courthouse-door-is-narrowing/A Minnesota consumer lawyer on three quiet forces—tougher pleading rules, buried class-action waivers, and plain cost—that are shutting ordinary people out of the courts.Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/a-currency-for-access/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/a-currency-for-access/Legal aid can't hire against one-year grants, and volunteer hours consume the supervision they're supposed to add. A forward, specialty-tagged purchase commitment fixes both — and bundles the one input big firms actually have to give.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/pung-tax-forfeiture-surplus-after-tyler/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/pung-tax-forfeiture-surplus-after-tyler/Tyler v. Hennepin County made it unconstitutional for a county to keep your surplus after a tax forfeiture. In Pung v. Isabella County, the Court held the surplus is measured by the auction price — not what the home was worth. Minnesota homeowners have six months to claim it.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/retrieval-is-the-whole-game/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/retrieval-is-the-whole-game/Why dumping a matter file into a context window fails, why embedding search underperforms specifically on legal text, and how to build retrieval that recovers the right paragraph with a citation attached.Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabtoolDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/an-unattributed-entry-is-honest/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/an-unattributed-entry-is-honest/Every system that automatically ties work to a matter faces the same temptation: always produce an answer. In a law office that is the wrong design, and the reason is Rule 1.5.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnehaha-creek-watershed-district-guide/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnehaha-creek-watershed-district-guide/How the MCWD's permits, the Wetland Conservation Act, and a half-dozen agencies overlap on one project — and why the system is so evidence-heavy for landowners.Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/inbound-is-an-attention-problem/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/inbound-is-an-attention-problem/Twelve calls, four web inquiries, a portal message and three e-service notices is not a lot of information. It is a lot of interruptions. On classifying inbound automatically, routing it by consequence, and the discipline of suppressing what does not matter.Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/flowers-foods-brock-arbitration-exemption/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/flowers-foods-brock-arbitration-exemption/In Flowers Foods v. Brock, a unanimous Court held that last-mile drivers moving goods that traveled interstate are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act — even if the driver never leaves the state. A rare decision that opens the courthouse door.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/running-models-on-your-own-hardware/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/running-models-on-your-own-hardware/The strongest confidentiality posture is client data that never leaves the building. Here is what local models actually cost, what they are genuinely good at, where they fall down, and the hybrid architecture that is usually the right answer.Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabtoolDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-work-you-did-and-never-billed/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-work-you-did-and-never-billed/Unbilled time is not a discipline problem, it is a capture problem — the work happened somewhere your billing system could not see. On reconstructing it honestly, why rounding decides whether approved equals billed, and the one rule that must never bend.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-wage-and-hour-guide/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-wage-and-hour-guide/Exempt vs. non-exempt, tips, overtime, and wage theft in Minnesota — what the law actually says, told through everyday scenarios.Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleMadgett Law, LLChttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-failure-that-says-nothing/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-failure-that-says-nothing/The dangerous bug in a firm's own software is never the crash. It is the button that does nothing, the file saved to a default location, the integration that stopped syncing in March and told no one.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/from-the-scanner-to-the-calendar/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/from-the-scanner-to-the-calendar/The mail arrives as a stack of scanned PDFs and leaves as filed documents, calendared deadlines, and a short list of things somebody has to decide. Six steps, and a clear rule about which ones a human must approve.Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/federal-arbitration-act-consumers/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/federal-arbitration-act-consumers/The Federal Arbitration Act was written to help merchants settle commercial disputes. Four decades of Supreme Court decisions turned it into a tool that pushes consumers out of court.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-discovery-of-your-prompts/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-discovery-of-your-prompts/Every AI-assisted workflow generates artifacts — prompts, retrieved documents, intermediate drafts, transcripts. Are they work product? Are they privileged? Does a litigation hold reach them? Nobody knows yet, and most firms are retaining them without having decided to.Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/connecting-claude-to-clio/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/connecting-claude-to-clio/There is an open standard for exactly this problem. My practice management vendor does not implement it. So the connector is four hundred lines of my own Python, and the interesting part is not the code — it is why every firm is writing it separately.Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabtoolDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-trust-vs-south-dakota/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-trust-vs-south-dakota/An honest comparison of Minnesota trust law with South Dakota, Nevada, Delaware, Alaska, and Wyoming — asset protection, dynasty trusts, and taxes, with the real limits.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleMadgett Law, LLChttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/ask-for-the-matter-not-the-path/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/ask-for-the-matter-not-the-path/The software you build for your own firm will be used by lawyers and legal assistants, not engineers. The single fastest way to make it unusable is to inherit the vocabulary of the tools you built it with.Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/a-firm-wiki-your-ai-can-query/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/a-firm-wiki-your-ai-can-query/The reason AI gives you generic legal work is that it has no idea where it is. A structured Obsidian knowledge base — plain markdown, real schema, provenance on every fact — turns a general assistant into one that already knows your practice.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-business-asset-vs-stock-purchase/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-business-asset-vs-stock-purchase/A Minnesota deal lawyer's plain-English guide to asset vs. equity purchases — liabilities, successor risk, the non-compete ban, taxes, and why the choice matters.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/what-you-owe-the-client-you-automated/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/what-you-owe-the-client-you-automated/Do you have to tell a client you used AI on their matter? What happens to the fee when a task takes twenty minutes instead of two hours? The disclosure question is genuinely unsettled — the fee question is not, and it cuts against the lawyer.Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/cox-sony-isp-liability-what-it-means-for-minnesota/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/cox-sony-isp-liability-what-it-means-for-minnesota/In Cox v. Sony Music, the Court erased a $1 billion verdict and held that an ISP is not liable merely for serving subscribers it knows are infringing. The last time the music industry could not reach the middleman, it sued a mother of four from Brainerd.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/never-compute-a-deadline-from-memory/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/never-compute-a-deadline-from-memory/Minnesota's three-day mail rule moved in 2020. Rule 6.05 was abrogated; the text now lives in Rule 6.01(e). If you learned it the old way you have been carrying a wrong rule for years — and so has every AI you ask.Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/credit-report-error-wont-get-fixed/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/credit-report-error-wont-get-fixed/You disputed the error and the bureau closed it as 'verified.' Here's why self-disputes fail, what the FCRA actually requires, and when it becomes a legal claim.Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/verifying-form-is-not-verifying-truth/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/verifying-form-is-not-verifying-truth/A fabricated case is the easy failure — it does not exist, so somebody notices. The dangerous one is a real case, correctly cited, standing for something it never said. Here is the four-pass verification gate that catches it.Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-estate-tax-trap/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-estate-tax-trap/Minnesota taxes estates over $3 million even when no federal tax is owed. Here's who gets caught, why married couples are especially exposed, and how planning helps.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-paid-leave-now-in-effect/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-paid-leave-now-in-effect/Benefits began January 1, 2026, and the first premiums were due April 30. A plain-English guide to the 2026 premium rate, the leave categories, the 20-week cap, and where Minnesota employers most often get this wrong.Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/hire-specialists-not-an-assistant/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/hire-specialists-not-an-assistant/One general-purpose AI assistant gives you a capable generalist with no limits and no handoffs. A real office is not organized that way, and neither should this be. On writing agent briefs, and why the limits matter more than the capabilities.Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/put-your-house-in-a-trust/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/put-your-house-in-a-trust/A plain-English look at what a revocable living trust does and doesn't do for a Minnesota home — probate, homestead, taxes, and the transfer-on-death deed alternative.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleMadgett Law, LLChttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/your-templates-are-your-knowledge-base/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/your-templates-are-your-knowledge-base/Every firm's institutional knowledge lives in its form file, and every firm's form file is quietly wrong in places nobody has checked since 2014. On template hygiene, stale-rule propagation, and why generation should populate a template rather than rebuild one.Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabworkflowDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/protection-order-financial-exploitation-vulnerable-adult/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/protection-order-financial-exploitation-vulnerable-adult/As of January 1, 2026, Minnesota courts can issue an order for protection against financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult — freezing assets and lines of credit and barring contact. Here is who can ask for one and what a court must find.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good/Nine of every ten ethics complaints in Minnesota close with no discipline at all — and every one of them was answered by a lawyer. A look at what our regulatory apparatus costs the people who never get a lawyer in the first place.Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-llc-operating-agreements/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/minnesota-llc-operating-agreements/Minnesota's LLC act fills every gap in your operating agreement with default rules. What those defaults actually say, and where agreements break down.Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsarticleDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/expert-affidavit-federal-court-berk-choy/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/expert-affidavit-federal-court-berk-choy/In Berk v. Choy, the Supreme Court held that a state affidavit-of-merit requirement does not apply in federal court. Minnesota has two of them — and Minnesota's Attorney General signed the brief urging the Court to rule the other way.Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewscommentaryDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-mental-load-of-running-six-conversations/https://www.madgettlaw.com/practice-lab/the-mental-load-of-running-six-conversations/AI can draft, research, and summarize. It cannot tell you what you were doing. A working attorney on the mental load of parallel work — and the kanban board built to carry it.Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTPractice LabessayDavid J.S. Madgetthttps://www.madgettlaw.com/news/welcome-to-the-new-madgettlaw-com/https://www.madgettlaw.com/news/welcome-to-the-new-madgettlaw-com/Madgett Law has launched a faster, cleaner website — with a new News section where we'll share legal insights and firm updates.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNewsfirm-newsMadgett Law, LLC