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
The Silent Part of the Conversation
It’s just one reason why Marie Stanton thrives as a mediatorFrom her fourth floor office in downtown Madison, with its inspirational view of the state capitol dome to the left and Lake Monona to the right, Marie A. Stanton of Hurley, Burish & Stanton has witnessed historic protests and speeches, the filming of the Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies, and the bustle of the Saturday morning farmer’s market, where dairy cows share space with Planned Parenthood and PFLAG booths. “It’s the nicest office I’ve ever had,” she says. “And the nicest …
A Separation
Nooshin Namazi’s journey from Iran to Long IslandIn the early 1970s, Nooshin Namazi often made courtroom arguments in Iran. Except the courtroom was the family living room and she was 8. “My poor parents and two sisters were my guinea pigs,” she says, “serving as mock jurors and enduring my arguing cases to them. I would just sit them down after dinner and I had a little ruler that I used to get their attention, waving it in the air, and I would just make up cases and try cases in front of them. “I don’t really have an …
There’s No “I” in Greene
Legendary Minneapolis litigator Cliff Greene has made teamwork his legacy“C’mere, I want to show you something.” Cliff Greene is giving a glancing tour of the offices of Greene Espel on the 22nd floor of the Campbell Mithun Tower in downtown Minneapolis. He’s now showing off the firm’s corner office spaces—historically the most coveted status spots in a high-profile business. At Greene Espel, though, they serve as two decidedly plain conference rooms, a community room and a mini-library. It’s not only the corner offices. The firm’s walls are dotted …
The Things He Carries
Stephen J. Meyer’s clients tend to be good people who have screwed up once“There are certain cases that you live with,” says criminal defense attorney Stephen J. Meyer, rolling his shoulders in agitation. “To this day, there are ones that follow me around. There’s one that I think about way too often.” The walls of the Meyer Law Office on Doty Street in downtown Madison are a testament to his life’s work in clearing the names of thousands of clients. There are thank-you notes, wall hangings, baubles. Two Chinese brothers who were under investigation for …
Basketball Theory
Med mal attorney Duane M. Fiedler strives to even the playing field—in the courts and on the court“You can’t live a perfect day,” UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, “without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” If so, Duane Fiedler, 60, a medical malpractice attorney in White Plains, has had the opportunity for some perfect days recently. Eight years ago, Fiedler brought his twins and three of their friends to an AAU basketball tryout for eighth-graders in Yonkers. Fiedler has been coaching inner-city basketball since his days at Syracuse …
A Better Way
Nancy Zalusky Berg advocates for family law clients and human rightsThe Frida Kahlo painting “Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair” depicts the Mexican artist in an oversized men’s suit sitting in a chair, scissors in her lap, strands of long black locks strewn on the floor at her feet. The 1940 painting came on the heels of the artist’s divorce from her unfaithful husband, Diego Rivera, and was followed the next year by Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Braid,” which recasts the wounded woman with a full head of stacked hair, blossoming anew. The paintings …
The Real Deal
How personal injury attorney James Michael Kelley III outwits the expertsIn Sidney Lumet's 1982 courtroom drama The Verdict, Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin, a down-on-his-luck attorney who brings a medical malpractice suit against a Boston hospital. His client’s family wants justice for the girl’s comatose state due to the doctors’ negligence. The fi lm’s climactic summation scene continues to inspire attorneys of all stripes, including James “Jay” Michael Kelley III, who has handled medical malpractice cases for 20 years. “You know, so much of …
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Courtroom
Labe Richman’s monologue benefits the Immigrant Defense Project“I’ve always had a desire to perform,” Labe M. Richman says. The 56-year-old criminal attorney appeared in high school plays and studied acting in college, and in 2003, he created the course “Effective Trial Communication Techniques: The Application of Advertising, Drama and Psychology to Trials,” which earned him an award from the New York County Lawyers Association for innovative continuing legal education. Then there’s the courtroom itself, where Richman has made a living for …
The Peaceful Warrior
Windle Turley fights for gun controlAsk Windle Turley if he has any thoughts on the Trayvon Martin shooting, and he’ll say he’s got nothing to add to the discussion. Then his answer comes like a spray of bullets. “Starting in the mid-‘80s, for eight or 10 years, we focused on trying to develop remedies in the common law that would curtail the unlimited access to handguns by potential wrongdoers,” says Turley, sitting in the offices of the Turley Law Firm he shares with four other attorneys, including his daughter, …
The Advocate
Jim Schwebel is in the business of rebuilding livesThere’s no observation deck on the top of the IDS tower in downtown Minneapolis, so these days the best God’s eye view of these prairie towns is the one from the offices of Schwebel Goetz & Sieben on the IDS’s 51st floor. From here, the naked eye can spy a flat-earth panorama of the Twin Cities that spans Target Field, the State Fair Space needle, the Guthrie Theater, the Gold Medal Flour and Grain Belt Beer signs, the Mississippi River, and, perhaps most significantly, the rebuilt …
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