Michelle MacDonald unleashed

Her law license will not be reinstated; the Minnesota media doesn't want to bring their citizens the whole story.

Minnesota Judge David Knutson has no integrity, but BAR rules forbid a lawyer from saying that.

Michelle MacDonald feels unleashed.

It’s a peculiar feeling, given that she’s probably lost her law license forever.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to reinstate the law license of perennial high court candidate and family law attorney Michelle MacDonald, agreeing with a panel of lawyers that she hadn't "undergone the requisite moral change for reinstatement to the practice of law."

The high court indefinitely suspended MacDonald's law license in June 2021 after repeated instances of misconduct, her second suspension in the past five years. MacDonald appealed for reinstatement in December 2021. After a three-day hearing, in which she brought seven witnesses to testify, a panel for the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board recommended against reinstatement.

"The panel determined that MacDonald minimized the seriousness of her misconduct, neglected to acknowledge her misconduct, and was unable to show — through her own words or through the testimony of others — any recognition of the harm she caused by her misconduct," the Supreme Court justices wrote in their decision, agreeing with the panel's recommendation.

She told me that the ruling unleashed her. Remarkably, she continues to have a thriving- or at least functional- practice, where she does work which does not require a law license.

The real story here is the failure of the Minnesota media to dig into this story; they prefer to smear Michelle.

Take the Minneapolis Star Tribune: their story is featured above.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune story used a lot of buzz words: misconduct, moral change, and recognition of harm. Here is more.

MacDonald has had a history of disciplinary action. Her law license was suspended in 2018 for 60 days for several ethics violations, including failing to competently represent a client, knowingly disobeying a court rule and engaging in disruptive courtroom conduct.

The court also concluded that MacDonald made false statements about the integrity of Dakota County Judge David Knutson, who presided over the 2013 child-custody trial of Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, MacDonald's client. Grazzini-Rucki was later convicted of hiding her two teenage daughters from their father for two years.

What I still don’t know is what Michelle did? I know, but I don’t think the author, Briana Bierschbach, does, and she wrote the story.

I asked her. She didn’t respond.