Personal Injury Lawyer Suspended for Stabbing Man in Bar

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Summary: A Minneapolis attorney stabbed a man at a bar in 2014, and now he has been officially suspended from practicing law.

A personal injury lawyer was suspended Wednesday for injuring a guy at a bar. Michael J. Riehm will not be able to practice for five years because he stabbed a man in the rib cage in downtown Minneapolis in 2014.

  

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In 2014, Riehm was drunk while celebrating New Year’s Day at Manny’s Living Room and Prohibition Bar at the W Minneapolis Hotel. Daniel Kerkinni, 31, approached the lawyer and made a flirtatious joke about Riehm’s wife, which caused Riehm and Kerkinni to get into a shoving match. Sometime later, Reihm reapproached Kerkinni and stabbed him with a steak knife. Riehm punctured and deflated his lung.

Riehm, 42, was convicted of first-degree felony assault and was given probation for seven years for the stabbing of Kerkinni. In a civil suit, a jury awarded Kerkinni $200,000 in damages to cover his medical expenses, loss of earnings, and pain and suffering.

Kerkinni had also unsuccessfully sued Manny’s Steakhouse and the hotel, but the judge found them not liable.

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The Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility said that Riehm’s “misconduct warrants an indefinite suspension with no rights to petition for reinstatement.”

Additionally, Riehm was punished for “an improper referral and fee-sharing arrangement” that he had with another personal injury firm. Reihm received over 100 referrals from an attorney at a rival firm, took on 23 of those cases, and from there paid the other attorney $11,000.

The Star Tribune wrote in 2012 that local personal injury firm TSR Injury Law learned of Riehm’s alleged kickback scheme with attorneys in its office and filed a lawsuit against him for malpractice. TSR claimed that Riehm paid its associates tens of thousands for referrals.

Do you think a suspension was enough of a punishment? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Star Tribune

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