John R. Shoemaker Minnesota Civil Litigation Attorney

Personal Biography:

John R. Shoemaker’s civil law practice is devoted primarily to litigation in state and federal courts. He represents individuals, partnerships and corporations in a wide variety of commercial, business and real estate and federal fair housing litigation. During Mr. Shoemaker’s more than 28 years of civil litigation experience, he has represented numerous financial institutions, including banks and mortgage companies, farm equipment manufacturers, automobile dealerships, real estate investors, real estate management companies, commercial and residential landlords, contractors, and individuals.

John R. Shoemaker attended the University of North Dakota, School of Law in Grand Forks, North Dakota from 1981 to 1984, and graduated with a “Juris Doctorate” law degree in May 1984.
From 1982 through 1984, John R. Shoemaker served as a Staff Editor and writer for the Law Review publication of the University of North Dakota, School of Law. During this same period, Mr. Shoemaker provided legal research assistance to North Dakota state judges, prosecutors and court appointed defense counsel through Central Legal Research, a state funded research bureau at the School of Law. During his second and third years of law school, Mr. Shoemaker also worked part-time as a law clerk for criminal defense attorney Robert J. LaBine in Grand Forks, North Dakota and assisted Mr. LaBine at trial of two felony cases in State and Federal Court.

During the summer of 1984, Mr. Shoemaker prepared for and passed the Minnesota and North Dakota bar examinations. He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Courts of Minnesota and North Dakota in October, 1984.

From 1984 through 1985, Mr. Shoemaker was the personal law clerk to the Honorable Gerald W. VandeWalle, Associate Justice of the North Dakota Supreme Court, in Bismarck, North Dakota.

In 1985, Mr. Shoemaker was admitted to practice before the Minnesota Federal District Court in Minneapolis-Saint Paul and the United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 2003, John R. Shoemaker was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court on motion of Minneapolis attorney Floyd Earl Siefferman, Jr. Mr. Shoemaker was associated in law practice with Mr. Siefferman in 1988 and 2003 as part of the Saliterman & Siefferman law firm.

During the period of 1985 through 1995, John R. Shoemaker was a member of three Minneapolis-Saint Paul law firms, including as an attorney-associate member of a Minnesota Top 50 law firm in Minneapolis and later as an attorney-shareholder-director-officer with a Minnesota Top 50 law firm in Saint Paul.

From 1990 through 2000, John R. Shoemaker represented AGCO Corporation and Massey Ferguson as trial counsel in Minnesota under the direction of Michael F. Swick, Vice-President and General Counsel, Atlanta, Georgia.

Since 2003, John R. Shoemaker has been lead counsel in two complex civil litigation cases in federal court involving multiple federal statutory and constitutional claims – Steinhauser, Meysembourg and Brisson v. City of Saint Paul, et al., and Harrilal, Johnson, et al., v. Magner, City of Saint Paul, et al – until recently these cases were to be considered by the United States Supreme Court, following a favorable decision by the Federal Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The cases will now be tried in the federal district court of Minnesota.

Mr. Shoemaker has served as issue editor and committee member of The Hennepin Lawyer, a Hennepin County Bar Association magazine, and as editor of the Ramsey Barrister, a Ramsey County Bar Association newsletter.

John R. Shoemaker also provides assistance to legal consumers who are seeking personal counsel in Minnesota and North Dakota in areas outside of the practice focus of Shoemaker & Shoemaker, PLC. Mr. Shoemaker has over 28 years of experience in the Twin Cities legal community and he provides valuable assistance to legal consumers who are faced with the difficult decision of choosing trial counsel from an expanding pool of “qualified” attorneys.

FAVORITE QUOTES:

“It’s a Big Club … and you ain’t in it … you and I are not in the Big Club.” George Carlin

“No matter how well intentioned, an authoritarian government always abuses its powers” –Congressman Ron Paul, Texas

“Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” Justice Brandeis, dissenting opinion, Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1929).

“Whatever one thinks of state action as a viable limiting principle on the constitutional command of equality, it should at least be clear that the most outrageous deprivations of equal rights are those perpetrated by the state itself.” United States v. City of Black Jack, Missouri, 508 F.2d. 1179 (8th Cir. 1974).

“The events that mark the end of one form of government and the beginning of another are more easily perceived and understood in the aftermath than by those caught up in the events and circumstances that constitute the transformation. The passions and affections of the moment interfere with the detachment that makes it possible for the mind to see the true significance of issues and decisions. Some things that seem large and momentous are in fact the exaggerated mirages of transient passion; others dismissed as sideshows will be seen in retrospect as crucial to the main event.” — Alan Keyes, Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan