His recent appointment to the Hennepin County bench offers Jack Nordby a unique opportunity to combine his avocation and his vocation. A true scholar and gentleman, Judge Nordby brings to the bench a lifelong passion for the law and literature. The passage quoted above provides insight concerning the type of judge Jack Nordby will be.

Robert Frost, among other writers, had a profound impact on Judge Nordby. He first met Frost in 1959 at a restaurant in Cambridge, Mass. Nordby, an English literature student, frequently attended Frost’s public readings and obtained signed copies of first editions of Frost’s books. An accomplished artist, Nordby once drew a picture of Frost and had the literary giant sign it. During his college and law school years, he also encountered T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Saul Bellow, Brendan Behan, Norman Mailer, Ogden Nash, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Lowell, Lillian Hellman, Leonard Bernstein, John Kennedy, and others.

Judge Nordby’s passion for literature, his keen intelligence, his diverse interests, and his many skills were all obvious by the time he entered high school. He grew up in Windom, a small town in south- western Minnesota. In addition to graduating valedictorian, he lettered in football, basketball, and golf. Attending Harvard College on a full academic scholarship, in 1964 he graduated in English magna cum laude. He entered Harvard Law School in 1964 on another full scholarship. While in law school, he worked in Harvard’s rare book library. His law teachers included Archibald Cox, Paul Freund, Alan Dershowitz, James Casner, James St. Clair and Erwin Griswold. Justice David Souter was also a student at the time.

After obtaining his law degree in 1967, Judge Nordby returned to Minnesota and enrolled in the university’s graduate English department, where he taught freshman English while working on a Ph.D. program focusing on law and literature. Within one year, however, he decided to enter the practice of law after Douglas Thomson, a prominent criminal defense lawyer, asked for his assistance on Norman Mastrian’s extremely complicated murder appeal.

Judge Nordby spent the next year working on Mastrian’s appeal. In one of the most highly publicized cases in Minnesota’s history, Mastrian had been convicted of first-degree murder for hiring a hit man to kill prominent criminal lawyer T. Eugene Thompson’s wife, at the request of Thompson, though both men have always steadfastly denied the allegations against them. Ultimately, Nordby and his co-counsel filed a five-volume brief spanning more than 500 pages. Praising the exceptional quality of their appellate advocacy, Justice Walter F. Rogosheske wrote:

In a most comprehensive, detailed, and penetrating brief submitted by defense counsel, defendant raises 21 legal issues challenging, singularly and collectively, what appears to be every arguable imperfection of the proceeding resulting in his conviction and sentence to life imprisonment, and from which it is vigorously urged that we must either reverse the judgment of conviction or at the very least grant a new trial. State v. Mastrian 285 Minn. 51, 171 N.W.2d 695, 698 (1969) (affirming conviction).

Judge Nordby soon became a partner in the firm of Thomson, Wylde & Nordby. Over the next decade, he practiced with many prominent criminal defense lawyers, including Joe Friedberg and Larry Rapoport. In 1980, he became a partner in the firm of Rapoport, Wylde & Nordby. Five years later, he joined the firm of Meshbesher, Singer & Spence (now Meshbesher & Spence, Ltd.) where, until his recent judicial appointment, he practiced with criminal defense lawyers Ken Meshbesher, John Sheehy, Howard Bass, and Dan Guerrero.

Over the past 27 years, Judge Nordby practiced primarily in the areas of criminal defense and professional responsibility. In addition to the more than 200 lawyers he has represented before the Board of Professional Responsibility, he has represented state and federal judges, doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and other licensed professionals in various disciplinary proceedings. Although most of his practice over the past decade has been administrative and appellate, involving dozens of appeals in many state and federal jurisdictions, a substantial portion of his previous practice involved criminal trials in both state and federal court.

Joe Friedberg recalls trying a major homicide case in which Judge Nordby second-chaired him. Friedberg describes the experience as thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing: "It was like trying a case in a rocking chair." At one point in the trial, the prosecutor objected to one of Friedberg’s legal arguments on the basis that it was unsupported by precedent. Undaunted, Friedberg replied to the objection by declaring, "I don’t need any legal precedent—I have Jack Nordby!"

Doug Thomson similarly characterizes Judge Nordby as an extremely imaginative and resourceful lawyer. Praising his extraordinary writing skills and legal knowledge, Thomson stated that Nordby was the most valuable resource ever available to him. In fact, Thomson recalls winning every case in which Nordby second-chaired him.

While practicing law, Judge Nordby taught courses on professional responsibility at both Hamline and William Mitchell law schools. He also lectured at hundreds of seminars on topics involving criminal law, constitutional law, evidence, and legal ethics. Having previously worked on a legal ethics treatise, Nordby is currently writing a book on evidence and a biography of Earl Rogers. He has authored 15 magazine articles and four law review articles involving criminal appeals, lawyer discipline, and the state constitution.

The Minnesota Bill of Rights: "Wrapt in the Old Miasmal Mist," 7 Hamline L.Rev. 51(1984), may represent Judge Nordby’s most significant contribution to Minnesota legal literature. This article, co-authored by Terrence Fleming, advocated interpreting the Minnesota Constitution as more protective of individual rights than the federal Constitution. Prior to the article’s publication, the Minnesota Supreme Court had never adopted such an interpretation. Yet, in eight cases decided over the 10 years following its publication, the Court construed various state constitutional provisions as more protective of individual rights than their federal counterparts. See Nordby, Thirty-Two Reflections on the Birth, Slumber and Reawakening of the Minnesota Constitution, 20 William Mitchell L.Rev. 245, 264-67 (1994)(the sequel). Two of those cases, State v. Hershberger and Friedman v. Commissioner of Public Safety, cited the Fleming and Nordby article.

Becoming a judge at this point in Nordby’s career seems appropriate. His two children, Andrea and Christopher, are now adults. He has been recognized by his peers as a "lawyer’s lawyer," having acquired a reputation as one of the country’s foremost experts on legal ethics. He is listed in all editions of Best Lawyers in America. He is personally and professionally ready for the bench.

Judge Nordby is truly a renaissance man. He is an accomplished artist and poet, a Shakesperian expert, and a connoisseur of classical music, while maintaining a unique collection of rare and old comic books. He is brilliant, learned, hard-working, modest, patient, kind, dignified, deliberate, respectful, and, above all, a person of impeccable integrity. He is a caring and sensitive person who respects equally all persons regardless of race, creed, color, sex, or station in life. He treats a homeless person who wanders into the office for free advice with as much patience and respect as he would afford to a CEO of a major corporation. He always has time to counsel and show concern for his colleagues and support staff. He is universally respected.