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MN MAGA Lawyer FINALLY Disciplined for Misconduct in Frivolous 2020 Election Litigation [1]

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Date: 2025-06-06

More than four years ago, I posted a diary sharing the news that right-wing Minnesota attorney Susan Shogren Smith had been fined $10,000 by a Ramsey County judge for her conduct in filing a frivolous lawsuit—specifically, an election contest—challenging the 2020 re-election of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. Notably, the fine wasn’t for the frivolousness of the suit itself; instead, it stemmed from the fact that the individuals Shogren Smith named as the contestants (i.e., plaintiffs)—ostensibly, her clients—had no idea their names were being used in a lawsuit and, in fact, had never spoken to her.

In truth, Shogren Smith pulled this same stunt in five nearly identical election contests she filed after the 2020 election, challenging every Minnesota Democrat elected to federal office that year: U.S. Reps. Omar, Angie Craig, Dean Phillips, and Betty McCollum, as well as U.S. Sen. Tina Smith. None of the fourteen contestants (plaintiffs) in the five contests had any idea that Shogren Smith was using them in the lawsuits she was filing. After learning this, the Ramsey County judge fined her $10,000 for the Omar contest but declined to issue further fines for the Craig, Phillips, and McCollum filings. The three-judge panel overseeing the Tina Smith contest, however, imposed an additional $15,000 fine.

Unsurprisingly, there were widespread calls—including in the comments on my previous diary—for disciplinary action against Shogren Smith’s law license. And indeed, at least four ethics complaints were filed against her license shortly after the lawsuits ended four years ago this month: two from attorneys, one from the Ramsey County judge, and one from the three-judge panel. But the wheels of attorney-discipline justice appear to grind exceedingly slowly, as it wasn’t until yesterday—June 5, 2025—that the Minnesota Supreme Court finally issued its decision imposing sanctions on Shogren Smith’s license. (The decision is available on the Minnesota appellate courts’ case-filing website under case number A23-1890.)



One surprising revelation in the decision: Shogren Smith still has not paid the $25,000 in fines imposed by the two courts more than four years ago. She has simply ignored the orders fining her. Yesterday, the state supreme court weighed in on her behavior:

Filing an unsuccessful election challenge is, of course, not attorney misconduct—but respondent’s treatment of the plaintiffs in these lawsuits was. She neither sought their permission prior to making them plaintiffs in a lawsuit nor informed them that she had done so. Indeed, at no time either prior to or during the litigation did respondent have any conversations or communications, of any kind, with any of the 14 plaintiffs, none of whom even knew respondent’s name. Only in late February 2021, after respondent was contacted by one of the 14 plaintiffs who had fortuitously discovered through other means that she had been made a party in a lawsuit and that a monetary judgment had been entered against her, did respondent communicate with any of the 14 plaintiffs. Later, that plaintiff reported to both local law enforcement and to the district court judge that her name had been improperly used in the election contest lawsuits. The judge conducted a hearing and concluded that respondent perpetrated a fraud on the court and the named plaintiffs by filing the lawsuits without confirming that the plaintiffs were knowingly seeking relief from the courts. The district court judge sanctioned respondent $10,000 for this conduct. Similarly, the three-judge panel concluded that respondent had committed a fraud on the court and sanctioned respondent an additional $15,000. Respondent did not pay the sanctions. Ultimately, 9 of the 14 plaintiffs asked to be removed from the proceedings. Respondent also failed to cooperate with the investigations by the Director [of the Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board] of this misconduct. Respondent’s misconduct is serious. Her misconduct involved not just lack of competence and failure to communicate with clients, but dishonesty to the courts and disregard for the discipline process. The cumulative weight of her violations is substantial: respondent’s misconduct was not a brief lapse in judgment but occurred throughout the litigation matters; over a year of non-cooperation with the Director’s investigations; and over multiple years, continuing to date, with respect to her failure to pay the sanctions judgments. Respondent caused harm to the individual plaintiffs, by filing a lawsuit in their name without their knowledge or consent which resulted in judgments being entered against them; to the courts; and to the reputation of the legal profession.

Shogren Smith, however, is not being disbarred. Consistent with the state supreme court’s approach in similar cases, her license is being suspended for a minimum of six months, after which she may petition for reinstatement. But before she can do that, she must pay the $25,000 in fines she owes and pass the multistate professional responsibility exam required of all new attorneys in Minnesota (and most other states). If reinstated, she’ll be subject to two years of probation under the supervision of the state’s attorney discipline authorities.

This isn’t the severe sanction many observers (including several commenters on my previous diary) had hoped for. But by the standards of attorney discipline, it is a serious penalty: a six-month suspension, $25,000 in fines (though those were already “baked in”), and a two-year probation period. Whether that’s a sufficient deterrent to prevent similar shenanigans in the future remains to be seen.

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