56 Facts About Lori Swanson

Lori Swanson was born on December 16,1966 and is an American lawyer and politician who served as the attorney general of Minnesota from 2007 to 2019.

Lori Swanson was the first female attorney general elected in Minnesota.

Lori Swanson served as deputy attorney general during Mike Hatch's first term, and as solicitor general during his second term.

Lori Swanson served as chair of the Consumer Advisory Council to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC, in 2006.

Lori Swanson was appointed to the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve board of governors in Washington, DC, in 2004.

Lori Swanson was appointed as vice-chair of the council in 2005.

Lori Swanson was appointed chair of the council in 2006.

Lori Swanson was elected Minnesota Attorney General on November 7,2006 and took office on January 2,2007, becoming the first woman to serve as Minnesota's attorney general.

Lori Swanson became the first William Mitchell College of Law grad to serve as the Minnesota Attorney General, ending the University of Minnesota Law School's continued streak of holding the office since in 1929.

Lori Swanson argued that the insurance companies were responsible for agents who sold long-term annuities with high surrender charge to the elderly.

Lori Swanson testified in the US Senate Committee on Aging about the need for insurance companies to require sales agents to ensure the suitability of the sale of an insurance product.

Lori Swanson was asked to testify before the United States Congress and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors about the Minnesota reforms.

Lori Swanson entered into settlements with a number of national banks for their role in the foreclosure crisis, giving the money back to homeowners who were victimized by the banks' conduct.

In 2007, a group of attorneys working for Lori Swanson attempted to form a union with the help of AFSCME council 5 to improve their working conditions and provide some protection from being asked to violate the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct by bringing baseless lawsuits against individuals and organizations to suit Lori Swanson's political aspirations.

On March 7,2008, MinnPost reported on the internal fight for unionization that was still ongoing, including reports that attorneys who did not support Lori Swanson politically were given punishment assignments or were removed from cases.

In 2009, Lori Swanson filed a lawsuit against National Arbitration Forum, at that time the largest consumer arbitration organization in the country.

Lori Swanson alleged that NAF was owned by a group of equity funds that were simultaneously affiliated with a national debt collection agency, Axiant, and the administration of the largest collection law firm at the time, Mann Brakken.

In July 2009 NAF signed a consent order with Lori Swanson agreeing to stop arbitrating consumer claims.

Lori Swanson was re-elected on November 2,2010, defeating Republican challenger Chris Barden.

In January 2012, Lori Swanson sued Accretive Health, a billing and revenue consulting firm hired by two Twin Cities hospitals, for losing patient data on a lap top.

Lori Swanson convened a hearing on the proposed merger in the State Capitol, grilling executives of the three organizations about the impact of the merger on the 23,000 Fairview employees in Minnesota and the $1.2 billion in assets held by the non-profit Fairview.

In November, 2013 Lori Swanson reached a settlement that required a for-profit college to make restitution to students whom it enrolled in a medical assisting degree program costing over $30,000 that wasn't properly accredited to train medical assistants to work for Minnesota employers.

In September, 2016 the district court in Hennepin County ruled that another for-profit college sued by Lori Swanson violated the consumer fraud laws by enrolling students who wanted to become police officers in a criminal justice program that was not certified by the state to train police officers.

In 2015, Lori Swanson became one of the first attorneys general in the country to file lawsuits against student loan assistance companies that charged students thousands of dollars for bogus help in supposedly alleviating student loan debt.

In 2014, Lori Swanson issued a scathing report on charities that contract with Savers, Inc.

Lori Swanson said that the charities and Savers were engaged in deceptive activities because the charities received only a few pennies in exchange for the dollars received by Savers for the sale of donated clothing.

Lori Swanson settled the matter in 2015 when Savers agreed to disclose that it is a for-profit company, that it will no longer commingle goods donated to specific charities, that it will disclose the amount of the revenue it receives which is donated to charity, that it will compensate charities for non-clothing items donated to the charity, and that it pay $1.8 million to the charities it serviced in the state of Minnesota.

In 2014 Lori Swanson was re-elected attorney general, winning seven of the eight Congressional Districts in Minnesota.

In September 2016, Lori Swanson sued Indivior PLC, a manufacturer of the opioid withdrawal medicine Suboxone, for unlawfully keeping out generic competition by tweaking the drug's structure to obtain a separate patent.

Lori Swanson wrote to insurance companies that month asking them to remove pre-authorization approval barriers to prevent or delay patients from getting access to opioid withdrawal treatment.

In November 2016, Lori Swanson issued a report on the opioid epidemic, calling for legislative and regulatory reforms as it relates to protocols on prescribing pain killers.

In June 2017, Lori Swanson opened an investigation concerning the role of pharmaceutical manufacturers in the opioid epidemic.

In October 2017, Lori Swanson expanded her lawsuit against generic drug companies for fixing the prices of popular medicines by naming a dozen more companies.

In July 2018, Lori Swanson filed sued against Purdue Pharma, claiming that it misrepresented the addictive nature of OxyContin.

Lori Swanson has been active in cases involving deceptive practices aimed at senior citizens.

Lori Swanson obtained a $7 million judgment against a company that sold living trusts to senior citizens as a guise to sell them insurance products.

Lori Swanson filed several lawsuits against outfits that bilked senior citizens with the sale of coins that were overpriced or not delivered.

Lori Swanson then worked with the legislature to secure enactment of legislation to curb abuses within the industry.

Lori Swanson brought a number of cases on behalf of patients who were harmed by various health care practices besides those listed above.

The hospital settled with Lori Swanson by agreeing to make over $1 million in refunds to patients.

In 2009 and 2010 Lori Swanson sued several companies that sold phony health insurance coverage to uninsured patients.

In 2013, Lori Swanson intervened to assist rural critical access hospitals after a large insurance company cut their contract payments.

Also in 2013, Lori Swanson asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to investigate a large insurer that sold Medicare policies after receiving complaints about shoddy payment practices.

In 2017, after the Minnesota Legislature authorized for-profit HMOs do business in Minnesota, Lori Swanson sounded the alarm about the need to protect the nonprofit assets held by Minnesota HMOs from being acquired by for-profit companies.

In 2017 Lori Swanson intervened after the state's largest insurance company and children's hospital failed to agreeing on a contract, bringing the two chief executive officers together to help forge a solution that would ensure continuity of care for 60,000 child patients.

In 2018 Lori Swanson filed a lawsuit against the federal government for cutting over $100 million in year in funding for MinnesotaCare, the state's 25 year old bipartisan health care program for the working poor.

Lori Swanson later got enacted bipartisan legislation that required debt buyers to provide evidence they are targeting the correct person in the right amount before filing collection lawsuits.

Lori Swanson got millions of dollars of bills written off after suing a Minnesota collection company that added 22 percent interest to old bank overdraft fees.

In 2015 Lori Swanson secured a favorable ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court that Minnesota lending laws apply to online lenders against a lender that claimed that the Dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution prohibited the application of such laws.

On February 1,2017, Lori Swanson joined the attorneys general of the states of Washington, New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts in bringing a lawsuit against the administration of President Donald Trump.

In February 2018, Lori Swanson reached a settlement of a major environmental lawsuit she filed in 2010 against 3M Company over its disposal of chemicals for several decades into the drinking water in the east metropolitan area of the Twin Cities.

Lori Swanson was named one of the "Top Ten Lawyers in America" by the national publication Lawyers USA in 2009.

Lori Swanson received the Robert Drinan "Champion of Justice" award from the National Consumer Law Center, a Washington-based non-profit organization that acts as a national clearing center and publisher for consumer lawyers and other legal advocates.

Lori Swanson was a recipient of the Pro Patria award by the Department of Defense for her work on behalf of armed service personnel.

In 2010, Lori Swanson was named Public Official of the Year by the Minnesota Nurses Association.

In 2014, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism awarded Lori Swanson the Distinguished Service Award.