Brooklyn Center lawyer in Big Lie cases suspended by Minnesota Supreme Court
The Minnesota Supreme Court suspended Susan Shogren Smith from practicing law after finding she named plaintiffs in Big Lie election cases without their consent in 2020, according to a June 5 order.
The state's highest court filed the order following a petition for disciplinary action from the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board. The board, which oversees the state's lawyer disciplinary system, alleged Shogren Smith, now 57, committed professional misconduct.
'[Shogren Smith's] misconduct is serious,' the court order stated. 'Her misconduct involved not just a lack of competence and failure to communicate with clients, but dishonesty to the courts and disregard for the discipline process.'
Shogren Smith did not respond to a phone message.
In 2020, the Brooklyn Center attorney represented the conservative group Minnesota Election Integrity Team in five cases that challenged election results. Shogren Smith named Secretary of State Steve Simon and Democratic House candidates as defendants.
President Donald Trump and his allies were busy at the time fostering unfounded claims of election fraud in what became known as the Big Lie, i.e., that President Joe Biden didn't actually win the election. The claims were rejected by Trump's own attorney general and dozens of judges.
Ramsey County District Court Judge Leonardo Castro presided over four cases, and one was sent to a three-judge panel. The cases, which Smith filed on behalf of 14 plaintiffs, were dismissed with roughly $18,000 in monetary judgement filed against the plaintiffs.
The state Supreme Court found that Shogren Smith enlisted the plaintiffs without their consent or even any communication with them.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Shogren Smith selected the 14 people out of a group who had returned affidavits to an email soliciting people to contest Minnesota election results. She drafted the affidavit, and then tacked the responders' names onto lawsuits she filed the next day, according to the order.
'Indeed, at no time either prior to or during the litigation did [Shogren Smith] have any conversations or communications, of any kind, with any of the 14 plaintiffs, none of whom even knew [Shogren Smith's] name,' the court order stated.
The plaintiffs didn't speak with the attorney until February 2021. According to the court order, one plaintiff had 'fortuitously discovered through other means' that she was listed as a party in a lawsuit and had a monetary judgement against her.
That plaintiff — identified in news reports as Corinne Braun — alerted local authorities and the presiding district court judge. Between a hearing and a decision from the three-judge panel, Shogren Smith was charged $25,000.
Once other plaintiffs were aware, nine of the 14 asked to be removed from the proceedings.
Shogren Smith became a licensed Minnesota lawyer in 2004, according to state records. In addition to practicing law, she operates a licensed foster home and has been involved in a number of nonprofits, political and otherwise. Among those is Picture A Hero, which delivers family portraits to military personnel who are preparing to deploy.
Social media posts from Shogren Smith show her posing in Trump merch and assisting in storm clean-ups with the group We the People are Coming to Save America.
The Minnesota Supreme Court determined Shogren Smith's suspension based on four factors: the nature of the misconduct; the cumulative weight of the violations of the rules of professional conduct; harm to the public; and harm to the legal profession.
The suspension takes effect 14 days after it was filed, and it also bars Shogren Smith from petitioning for reinstatement for six months. She cannot be reinstated until she pays $25,000 in sanctions she received in 2021, and upon reinstatement she would face two years of probation.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
06-07-2025
- The Hill
NextGen bar exam elevates legal competence, streamlines interstate practice
Since when have conservatives started defending the bar examination? For decades, many on the right have argued it was an arbitrary barrier to entry into the legal profession. Now, some conservatives are arguing that reforms designed to make it a highly practical exam are actually promoting DEI and wokeness. This couldn't be further from the truth. As a current Arizona Supreme Court justice and a retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice, we both served on the judicial advisory committee convened to inform the development of the new exam, many of whose recommendations were included in the final product. We fully endorse the NextGen exam as a rigorous, client-focused assessment of legal doctrine and lawyering skills that additionally serves to facilitate license portability across the U.S. — a longstanding conservative priority. Both of our states have adopted the new bar exam, which will be first given in July 2026, and in our jurisdictions in July 2027. Both courts engaged in thorough review processes that included evaluation of doctrine and skills content in the exam, results from pilot and prototype testing, and other relevant information. Like all state high courts, our courts are responsible for admitting new lawyers in Arizona and Minnesota. That responsibility includes a duty to ensure, to the extent possible, that only those who meet our states' standards of competence are licensed to practice law. We—and our colleagues across the country — took our responsibility seriously in evaluating the NextGen bar exam. Forty-one states and territories have now adopted it, bringing the testing of prospective lawyers into the 21st Century. The construction of the exam began with a novel idea that also happens to be a best practice in licensure exams — the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the ultimate author of the exam, decided to ask more than 14,800 U.S. lawyers what topics should be tested on a bar exam. Those lawyers came from every part of the US and every imaginable practice and employment, from rural areas to big cities, and those opinions helped shape the new exam. Nor has this project been hidden from the public. Since the inception of the NextGen project in 2018, extensive information was regularly published about the development and performance of the new exam. Even a cursory review of the NextGen website and related publications makes it evident that the process is steeped in scientific rigor, data analytics, and oversight by subject matter experts — lawyers, judges, and law faculty. Like the current Uniform Bar Exam, the NextGen bar exam will serve as an important bridge among the states and territories that administer it, facilitating score portability across the U.S. A NextGen bar exam score earned anywhere in the country can be transferred for admission purposes to any other state or territory that elects to accept it. As of today, only one of the 43 adopting Courts has indicated that it will not accept qualifying scores earned in other NextGen jurisdictions. Over 70,000 attorneys have taken advantage of the score portability program offered through the current exam, and portability continues to be a compelling argument for a nationally administered and accepted bar exam. At no point has the National Conference of Bar Examiners asserted that its purpose in developing the NextGen exam was to make it easier than the current bar exam, as some have recently and falsely claimed, nor has conference made that argument to our courts. As with the current bar exam, it is the highest court in each of the 43 states that determines what a passing score is, not the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The NextGen bar exam will more closely reflect day-to-day law practice by requiring application of legal knowledge to client-oriented tasks, along with demonstrating mastery of foundational legal subjects such as constitutional and criminal law, torts, property, and contracts. The new exam also requires successful examinees to understand and apply the principles of professional responsibility — essential to legal ethics — to ensure lawyers are prepared to navigate the complexities of the attorney-client relationship. By the time the NextGen exam launches, over 10,500 third-year law students and new lawyers will have tested the content through pilot, field, prototype, and beta administrations. All NextGen bar exam questions generate performance statistics that are analyzed by psychometricians, attorney test editors, and subject matter experts to assure appropriate difficulty, clarity, and suitability for a high-stakes licensure exam. From our perspective, the new bar exam will measure not simply book learning, but the demonstrated ability to practice law. Members of the legal profession from across the political spectrum should support this change. Justice Clint Bolick is a sitting member of the Arizona Supreme Court and retired Justice G. Barry Anderson is a former member of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Newsweek
19-06-2025
- Newsweek
Open the Immigration Courtroom—Justice Can't Be Done in the Dark
As Sean "Diddy" Combs' federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial enters its sixth week, Americans are getting a front-row seat to justice in action. Thanks to media access inside the courtroom, trial coverage dominates headlines and social media platforms like TikTok. But while America scrutinizes one man's reckoning in real time, thousands of other people with just as much at stake remain invisible. That's because immigration courtrooms, where non-citizens petition for legal status to stop deportation, are closed to the public. This lack of visibility isn't due to public disinterest. It's by design. The interior of the Minnesota Supreme Court is pictured. The interior of the Minnesota Supreme Court is pictured. Getty Images As a former assistant chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), I spent over a decade litigating cases in closed-door proceedings. During our training, we're told that immigration courts are closed to protect the safety of a person seeking relief. But after years as a prosecutor, I've come to see things differently: secrecy doesn't protect immigrants—it protects the system. To achieve proper accountability and transparency from the government, as is the public's right under the First Amendment, it's time to open the courtroom doors. Visibility––however uncomfortable for the judges, prosecutors, and the parties involved–– is what the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to a public criminal trial requires. Though civil, immigration courts shouldn't be exempt from basic principles of transparency. Oversight enables public debates like those surrounding Cassie's testimony in Diddy's trial. Meanwhile, immigration courts operate like black boxes, largely immune to scrutiny. The closed nature of immigration courts, classified as civil, is not required by law. While some proceedings, such as bond proceedings and initial masters, are technically open to the public, immigration judges have near-total discretion to close them. And they often do, as in Mahmoud Khalil's case, where the court disabled video links and phone access, citing procedural reasons such as reserving access only for parties and witnesses, not the press or public. Invisible courtrooms allow systemic failures to go unchecked. Take the case of Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student, arrested in Dalton, Ga., on May 5, for allegedly running a red light. Local police later admitted she hadn't. But by then, Ximena had already been handed over to ICE, transferred to Stewart Detention Center, detained for 16 days, and placed into removal proceedings. Her place of birth—not her actions—determined her fate. A closed removal hearing meant observers couldn't question how racial profiling enabled her arrest or how ICE capitalizes on its use. In a system where justice operates like a two-way mirror, the government sees everything, and the public only sees what it's allowed to. Invisibility also facilitates the coordinated betrayal of due process. In late May, asylum seekers in Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Chicago appeared for their hearings. They placed their trust in the legal system, hoping that the harm they suffered would be considered with the dignity and fairness the law promises. Instead, judges, cloaked in the illusion of neutrality, granted the government's motion to dismiss case after case without testimony or review, fully aware that ICE agents waited outside with handcuffs. Once dismissed, the government was free to detain and deport immediately. And with the public barred from observing, no one saw that what was presented as "justice" felt more like a sting operation. Some argue that closing immigration courts protects applicants who are fleeing persecution, from retaliation or public trauma. But if this system was truly designed to protect the vulnerable, it wouldn't have terminated nearly 30 immigration judges without cause, sending a chilling message to those who remain. Nor would it need to hide behind closed doors to obscure its 76 percent denial rate in March 2025 alone. The message is clear: immigration courts aren't protecting dignity. They protect discretion, unchecked power, and this administration's enforcement priorities. To achieve accountability, we need transparency. In the Diddy trial, prosecution star witness Cassie did not derive her strength from silence; it came from speaking out. Her willingness to expose painful chapters of her life forced the public to confront the systems of power that enable abuse. But Mahmoud Khalil and others in immigration court aren't afforded that exposure. Their fight for justice plays offstage, unheard and unseen. If the public could witness what happens inside immigration courts, perhaps then, instead of debating open borders or legal loopholes, we'd begin to understand what is at stake. Organizations like the American Bar Association have begun court awareness projects to let the public in. Until immigration courts are opened to the public, justice will not be reimagined. Veronica Cardenas is an immigration attorney, former assistant chief counsel with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and founder of Humanigration. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Yahoo
Brooklyn Center lawyer in Big Lie cases suspended by Minnesota Supreme Court
Chambers of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Courtesy Minnesota Judicial Branch. The Minnesota Supreme Court suspended Susan Shogren Smith from practicing law after finding she named plaintiffs in Big Lie election cases without their consent in 2020, according to a June 5 order. The state's highest court filed the order following a petition for disciplinary action from the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board. The board, which oversees the state's lawyer disciplinary system, alleged Shogren Smith, now 57, committed professional misconduct. '[Shogren Smith's] misconduct is serious,' the court order stated. 'Her misconduct involved not just a lack of competence and failure to communicate with clients, but dishonesty to the courts and disregard for the discipline process.' Shogren Smith did not respond to a phone message. In 2020, the Brooklyn Center attorney represented the conservative group Minnesota Election Integrity Team in five cases that challenged election results. Shogren Smith named Secretary of State Steve Simon and Democratic House candidates as defendants. President Donald Trump and his allies were busy at the time fostering unfounded claims of election fraud in what became known as the Big Lie, i.e., that President Joe Biden didn't actually win the election. The claims were rejected by Trump's own attorney general and dozens of judges. Ramsey County District Court Judge Leonardo Castro presided over four cases, and one was sent to a three-judge panel. The cases, which Smith filed on behalf of 14 plaintiffs, were dismissed with roughly $18,000 in monetary judgement filed against the plaintiffs. The state Supreme Court found that Shogren Smith enlisted the plaintiffs without their consent or even any communication with them. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Shogren Smith selected the 14 people out of a group who had returned affidavits to an email soliciting people to contest Minnesota election results. She drafted the affidavit, and then tacked the responders' names onto lawsuits she filed the next day, according to the order. 'Indeed, at no time either prior to or during the litigation did [Shogren Smith] have any conversations or communications, of any kind, with any of the 14 plaintiffs, none of whom even knew [Shogren Smith's] name,' the court order stated. The plaintiffs didn't speak with the attorney until February 2021. According to the court order, one plaintiff had 'fortuitously discovered through other means' that she was listed as a party in a lawsuit and had a monetary judgement against her. That plaintiff — identified in news reports as Corinne Braun — alerted local authorities and the presiding district court judge. Between a hearing and a decision from the three-judge panel, Shogren Smith was charged $25,000. Once other plaintiffs were aware, nine of the 14 asked to be removed from the proceedings. Shogren Smith became a licensed Minnesota lawyer in 2004, according to state records. In addition to practicing law, she operates a licensed foster home and has been involved in a number of nonprofits, political and otherwise. Among those is Picture A Hero, which delivers family portraits to military personnel who are preparing to deploy. Social media posts from Shogren Smith show her posing in Trump merch and assisting in storm clean-ups with the group We the People are Coming to Save America. The Minnesota Supreme Court determined Shogren Smith's suspension based on four factors: the nature of the misconduct; the cumulative weight of the violations of the rules of professional conduct; harm to the public; and harm to the legal profession. The suspension takes effect 14 days after it was filed, and it also bars Shogren Smith from petitioning for reinstatement for six months. She cannot be reinstated until she pays $25,000 in sanctions she received in 2021, and upon reinstatement she would face two years of probation.
