About Jim Walsh
Jim Walsh is an award-winning author, journalist, writer, and songwriter from Minneapolis. A columnist for the Southwest Journal and regular contributor to MinnPost.com, his work has appeared in Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, and many other publications. He is the author of Fear & Loving in South Minneapolis; Bar Yarns and Manic-Depressive Mixtapes: Jim Walsh on Music from Minneapolis to the Outer Limits; Gold Experience: Following Prince in the ’90s; and The Replacements: All Over But The Shouting. A father of two (Henry and Helen!) and sometime teacher at the Loft Literary Center, Walsh is the ringleader behind the longtime singer/songwriter showcase The Mad Ripple Hootenanny. His new band, Jim Walsh and the Dog Day Cicadas, has recorded two releases, “Songs For The Band To Learn” (2017) and “Shout It Out To You” (2022). He lives in Minneapolis with his partner Mary Beth Hanson and their two cats, Rumi and Rilke.
Articles written by Jim Walsh
Their Voice in the System
How Vildan Teske defends the rights of U.S. military service membersIn 2013, the National Association of Consumer Advocates reached out to Vildan Teske, asking if she would testify at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about the impact of forced arbitration on consumers’ and service members’ rights. The request came shortly after she had represented a member of the military whose home was being foreclosed on as he deployed. The lender was in clear violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which provides foreclosure protection to those on active …
The Most Expensive Orchestra Ever
The LA Lawyers Philharmonic measures time by the director’s beat rather than in six-minute incrementsThe 80-member Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic and its offshoot choir and big band, which have been entertaining people in theaters, churches and halls since 2011, is where “lawyers, judges, law students and legal staff meet in harmony,” according to the group’s website. OK, mostly in harmony. For Erin Prouty, an estate planning and probate attorney at Hoffman Sabban & Watenmaker, who plays flute and piccolo, the first difference she noticed between this orchestra and others was …
The King's Castle
James McLaren on overseeing the expansion of GracelandCatalytic. It’s one of James McLaren’s favorite words, used to describe almost any project he’s working on. McLaren uses it, for example, when discussing his latest client—the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. “I was an Elvis fan,” he says. “Getting to work on this project at Graceland really means something. … He was the catalytic person in changing music. Blues and rock ’n’ roll and soul all came out of here—Memphis.” A partner since 2006 at Adams and Reese, McLaren is part …
'Someone Should Just Go Get Her'
Shaimaa Hussein goes the extra mile for refugees and asylum seekersShortly after Donald Trump implemented his Jan. 27, 2017, travel ban of seven Muslim-majority countries, Shaimaa Hussein and her colleagues at Willkie Farr & Gallagher heard—via a faculty member of the Fordham University law school—the story of Alma Kashkooli, a 12-year-old Iranian girl who desperately needed timesensitive eye surgery. Alma’s mother, Farimah, was studying law at Fordham on a student visa. She and her husband had already scheduled their daughter’s surgery at a …
Cheers to Michael Madigan
How to build a thriving alcohol practice before last callCall Michael Madigan the anti-Andrew Volstead. In 1919, Volstead, a Minnesota congressman and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, shepherded the Volstead Act, aka the National Prohibition Act, aka the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, through Congress. It was enacted “to prohibit intoxicating beverages” and “to regulate the manufacture, sale, or transport of intoxicating beverages.” Didn’t take. One hundred years later, Madigan is on the forefront of an industry still …
Taking the ‘A’ Train
John Mancebo makes a connection on the way to Ice Hockey in HarlemJohn Mancebo, an employment and personal injury lawyer at Tressler in New York, immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 8, and quickly became enamored of a sport that wasn’t exactly big in his native Dominican Republic: ice hockey. A New Jersey Devils fan, Mancebo played in high school, and as an adult volunteered as a coach for Ice Hockey in Harlem, a 31-year-old nonprofit that introduces city kids to the game. Mancebo is featured in the latest issue of New York Super Lawyers magazine. I was a …
The Road King
“Motorcycle Mike” Levine’s goal is to educate every biker in New YorkGrowing up on Long Island, Mike Levine was forever changed by the sight of the Nassau and Suffolk County police motor units as they cruised parades and escorted dignitaries. “I always thought motorcycle cops were the coolest human beings alive, riding around on Harley-Davidson motorcycles all day long, pulling over bad guys,” says Levine, a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney at Rappaport, Glass, Levine & Zullo. “In New York, they did and do ride Harley-Davidson Road Kings, so I …
Fire and Ice
Why John Mancebo cannot not succeedChildhood friends, John Mancebo feels, would find it funny that he wound up playing ice hockey. “The closest I had come to snow before moving to the U.S.,” he says, “was the frost that would accumulate in our freezer.” Thirty years ago, Mancebo’s family moved here from the Dominican Republic. He is now a 38-year-old husband, father and labor employment attorney at Tressler who spends his spare time volunteering—all for one very good reason. “My mother: Benita Patino,” he says. …
Traffick Alert
How Karla Vehrs helps the most vulnerable of immigrantsIn 2004, Karla Vehrs was in the first months of an internship with the refugee and immigrant program at the Minnesota-based Advocates for Human Rights when she was introduced to a family from Africa whose harrowing tale still haunts her—and which inspired the Appleton, Wisconsin native to represent immigrants on a pro bono basis for the last 12 years. “I spent many hours talking with one of the family members about the many horrific things that she had never shared with anyone,” says …
Won’t Back Down
When politicians pick campaign songs, songwriters pick Lawrence IserFive years ago, Lawrence Iser took his adult sons, Zach and Andy, to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to make a point about Iser’s work as an intellectual property litigator, and theirs as, respectively, a music agent and a television script writer. “We were in town for a wedding,” says Iser, a managing partner at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert in Santa Monica. “And I wanted to show them the Constitution, which is just sitting there in a display case. So I go, …
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