Chris Kluwe Retains Legal Counsel In The Form Of Prominent Employment And Consumer Law Attorney

Last week, we told you about Chris Kluwe's story he submitted to Deadspin in which he alleges he was released from the Vikings due to his stance and activism on the issue of gay marriage.  In it, he called special teams Mike Priefer a 'bigot' qhile providing some pretty specific and ugly examples, and Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman 'cowards'.  Priefer issued a statement 'vehemently' denying those accusations, and some current and former players spoke out in support of Priefer.

You can read all about it right here.

The next day, the Vikings announced they had hired the former Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, among others, to lead an independent investigation into the matter.

At the time of all of this going down, I made an observation as a comment in one of the threads that went something along the lines of 'you know, Kluwe really put a lot of detail into this Deadspin story.  I mean, he had exact quotes, times, who he met with and when, etc.  It seems like he's setting things up to file a wrongful termination lawsuit.'

He is one step closer to doing just that today, as he has retained legal counsel in the form of one Mr. Clayton Halunen and the National Center For Lesbian Rights.

Well, just who is Clayton Halunen, you may ask?  Well, if it's this Clayton Halunen, of Halunen and Associates law firm of Minneapolis, they are a law firm that specializes in...wait for it....WAIT FOR IT BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE IT...employment and consumer law.  I can find no other Minneapolis lawyer named Halunen in Minneapolis, at least via Google.

Here's his bio taken from the Halunen and Associates website linked above:

Clayton Halunen is the founder of Halunen & Associates, an employment and consumer protection law firm with offices in Minneapolis and Chicago. He represents plaintiffs exclusively in cases involving employment law, mass torts, class action litigation and qui tam actions. Clayton has the distinction of obtaining one of the largest verdicts in Minnesota history in a single-plaintiff employment case. This year he represented one of the relators in a $1.5 billion settlement against Abbott Labs for off-label sales in violation of the False Claims Act. On a national level, Clayton has gained recognition for his work in the areas of defective products, food, drug, and supplement mislabeling, and consumer fraud class action litigation. He has served in leadership positions in a number of prominent nationwide class actions.

In a statement, Kluwe said:

"I want the truth to come out from the investigation, not in litigation."

May I do some Rickspeak for you here?  Because that's what Chris said.  What he actually meant is***

"I want the truth to come out from the investigation, not in litigation, as long as the investigation favors me and not the Vikings.  Because if the investigation says the Vikings were right, I'll call it a sham and sue the shit out of them and the NFL."

***LEGAL DISCLAIMER IF YOU READ THIS CHRIS KLUWE OR HIGH POWERED ATTORNEY GUY:  Obviously, I have no idea if this is what Kluwe meant.  I cannot read minds, obviously, and he never actually, you know, said this to me.  Google 'Ted Glover Rickspeak Daily Norseman' and you will see I have been a non-mind reading smartass long before this article.  Please don't sue me.  Okay? Okay.

Anyway, this smells like the opening salvo of a guy getting ready to file a wrongful termination suit, and if it is, it's going to get a lot uglier around these parts.