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How did I decide to become a lawyer representing only franchisees and dealers? Actually, I kind of think of Robert Frost when I think of how this happened, kind of the road taken and the road not taken. But I decided to be a lawyer after I figured out that being a priest wasn’t gonna work for me. I got knocked out by a one-two punch: Latin and celibacy. This isn’t gonna work for me, so I’m thinking where else can I give a homily on a regular basis and pass the collection plate. I know, become a trial lawyer.

So I’m off to law school, and now in my last year of law school, and my family business was a Hamm’s Beer distributorship in South Dakota. And my dad got a notice – I remember this back in the mid seventies. Olympia bought Hamm’s, and proceeded to send termination notices to 251 Hamm’s distributors around the country, including my father. He says, “Michael, what do we do?” I went to my antitrust professor; it seemed like an antitrust issue. He said, “Forget about it. It’s a unilateral refusal to deal. There is nothing you can do.”

Well, it’s family, and I didn’t accept that. I had accepted a job at a big firm here in town, I went down and starting working there and read every termination case there was, and found one good one out of New Jersey. We went into court and got my dad a restraining order preventing the termination. And we ultimately represented 34 distributors in seven states, and we resolved it very successfully two years later. And then for eight years, I did what they tell you to do in law school: take any case, any side. But it was in 1983, it was like a light bulb came on after I had some success on different issues and different cases.

I thought you know what? I know what they say in law school, but life is short. I want to focus on what I believe in. And what I really believe in is helping people like my dad. And so I decided in 1983 to focus my professional career in helping people like my dad, franchisees and dealers and distributors, when they are having some type of business-threatening dispute with their franchisors and suppliers. So from 1983 to now, that’s all I’ve done. In 1994, I formed this boutique law firm, that moniker didn’t exist back in 1994, but it does now.

But we have ten lawyers here, and they all do what I do. We just help franchisees and dealers address businesses threatening issues with their franchisors and suppliers. But that’s how it happened. The family crisis, I decided to help and it worked out, and one thing leads to another. That’s the road I’ve decided to take.

Minneapolis franchisee lawyer Michael Dady shares how he chose to become an attorney specializing in franchisee law.

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