List of University of South Dakota School of Law people explained

List of prominent alumni and faculty of the University of South Dakota School of Law.

Academia

	J.D. 1974	President of the University of South Dakota 1997–present.
	J.D. 1973	President of South Dakota Board of Regents

Attorneys General

	L.L.B. 1906	8th Attorney General of South Dakota
	L.L.B. 1906	9th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B.	11th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1914	12th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B.	13th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1927	16th Attorney General of South Dakota.
Sigurd Anderson	L.L.B. 1937	17th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B.	20th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	L.L.B.	21st Attorney General of South Dakota.
Frank Farrar	L.L.B. 1953	22nd Attorney General of South Dakota.
Gordon Mydland	L.L.B. 1948	23rd Attorney General of South Dakota.
Kermit Sande	J.D. 1968	24th Attorney General of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1966	25th Attorney General of South Dakota and petitioner in South Dakota v. Opperman and Reeves, Inc. v. Stake.
	J.D. 1970	26th Attorney General of South Dakota and petitioner in Solem v. Helm and Solem v. Bartlett.
	J.D. 1978	27th Attorney General of South Dakota and petitioner in South Dakota v. Dole.
	J.D. 1978	28th Attorney General of South Dakota and petitioner in South Dakota v. Bourland.
	J.D. 1972	29th Attorney General of South Dakota, Judge of 2nd Circuit Court of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1995	current 30th Attorney General of South Dakota and petitioner in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc.

Business

	L.L.B. 1924	chief counsel to Reconstruction Finance Corporation
	L.L.B. 1946	founder-owner of the Miami Dolphins, 1966-1990.
	L.L.B. 1953	founder, owner, and chairman of First Savings Bank.
Mike Myers	J.D. 1967	CEO of Mayo Clinic and board director of Minnesota Blue Cross Blue Shield
	J.D. 1973	CEO of Super 8 Motels and heir Jewett fortune.
	J.D. 1974	CEO of Avera Health.
Steve T. Kirby	J.D. 1975	co-founder of Bluestem Capital.
	J.D. 1982	President & CEO of Porsche North America, Inc.

Governors and Lieutenant Governors

	L.L.B 1903	Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota and member of the prominent Kingsbury family.
Leslie Jensen	L.L.B. 1921	15th Governor of South Dakota
Merrell Q. Sharpe	L.L.B. 1914	17th Governor of South Dakota.
George T. Mickelson	L.L.B. 1927	18th Governor of South Dakota and 1952 U.S. Presidential Candidate
	L.L.B. 1927	27th Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota, and presiding Judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of South Dakota.
Lem Overpeck	L.L.B. 1936	Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota.
Sigurd Anderson	L.L.B. 1937	19th Governor of South Dakota.
Frank L. Farrar	L.L.B. 1953	24th Governor of South Dakota.
George S. Mickelson	J.D. 1965	28th Governor of South Dakota.
William J. Janklow	J.D. 1966	27th and 30th Governor of South Dakota.
Steve Kirby	J.D. 1975	Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota.
Matt Michels	J.D. 1985	current Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota, 2011–present.

State Supreme Court Justices

Charles R. Hayes	L.L.B.	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Charles R. Hanson	L.L.B.	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
James M. Doyle	L.L.B.	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Fred R. Winans	L.L.B.	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Jon Fosheim	L.L.B. 1943	Chief Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Frank Biegelmeier	L.L.B. 1927	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Alex Rentto	L.L.B. 1933	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Francis G. Dunn	L.L.B. 1937	Chief Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Fred J. Homeyer	L.L.B. 1942	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Donald J. Porter	L.L.B. 1943	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
George W. Wuest	L.L.B. 1949	Chief Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Robert E. Morgan	L.L.B. 1950	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Oren P. Coler	L.L.B. 1952	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
	L.L.B. 1952	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Boyd Leedom	L.L.B. 1955	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Roger L. Wollman	J.D. 1962	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Richard W. Sabers	J.D. 1963	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Robert A. Miller	J.D. 1963	Chief Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Laurence J. Zastrow	J.D. 1970	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
	J.D. 1974	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Steven L. Zinter	J.D. 1975	current Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
David Gilbertson	J.D. 1975	current Chief Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Glen A. Severson	J.D. 1975	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Lori S. Wilbur	J.D. 1977	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
Judith Meierhenry	J.D. 1977	Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
	J.D. 1977	current Justice, Iowa Supreme Court.
	J.D. 1988	current Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.
	J.D. 1993	current Justice, South Dakota Supreme Court.

United States District Attorneys

	L.L.B. 1934	27th U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1928	28th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1951	29th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1951	30th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1956	31st U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1968	32nd U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota
	J.D. 1977	33rd U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1970	34th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota, Commissioner of National Indian Gaming Commission.
	J.D. 1978	37th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota
James E. McMahon	J.D. 1977	38th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
Marty Jackley	J.D. 1995	39th U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1980	41st U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1997	current 42nd U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota 2018–present.

United States District Court

George Theodore Mickelson	L.L.B. 1927	Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of South Dakota.
Fred Joseph Nichol	L.L.B. 1936	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court of for the District of South Dakota
	L.L.B. 1943	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1947	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota
John Bailey Jones	L.L.B. 1953	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota.
	L.L.B. 1953	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota, presiding judge of 'Sue' Dinosaur Case.
	J.D. 1965	Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota.
	J.D. 1977	current Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota. 2013–present.
Daneta Wollmann	J.D. 2003	current Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota. 2018–present.

United States House of Representatives

William Williamson	L.L.B. 1905	22nd U.S. Representative from South Dakota.
Royal Cleaves Johnson	L.L.B. 1906	19th U.S. Representative from South Dakota, and highly decorated WWI veteran while he was a member of Congress.
Ellis Yarnal Berry	L.L.B. 1927	28th U.S. Representative from South Dakota.
Harold Lovre	L.L.B. 1927	27th U.S. Representative from South Dakota.
Frank E. Denholm	L.L.B. 1959	31st U.S. Representative from South Dakota.
Bill Janklow	J.D. 1966	39th U.S. Representative from South Dakota.
James Abourezk	J.D. 1966	32nd U.S. Representative, author of the Indian Child Welfare Act, and first Lebanese-American member of Congress.
Tim Johnson	J.D. 1975	U.S. Representative from South Dakota.

United States Senate

Joseph H. Bottum	L.L.B. 1927	19th U.S. Senator from South Dakota
James Abourezk	J.D. 1966	21st U.S. Senator from South Dakota and first Arab-American member of Congress.
Tim Johnson	J.D. 1975	25th U.S. Senator from South Dakota.

United States Military

	L.L.B. 1906	U.S. Lieutenant, Distinguished Service Cross recipient and Croix de Guerre with gold star from the Republic of France.
Leslie Jensen	L.L.B. 1921	U.S. Colonel in Pacific Theater of WWII
	L.L.B. 1949	U.S. Colonel, Medal of Honor recipient, most highly decorated military officer since Douglas MacArthur, and POW cell-mate with John McCain
Gregory J. Stoltenburg	J.D. 1995	U.S. Lt. Colonel and current Presiding Judge of the Third Circuit Court of South Dakota, 2015–present.

State Legislature

• William Garner Waddel (1904), Member of South Dakota Senate
  • Roswell Bottum (1924), Member of South Dakota House of Representatives Donald A. Haggar, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Scott Heidepriem (1980), Minority Leader of South Dakota Senate.
• Anne Hajek, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Marc Feinstein (1995), Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Lance Russell (2000), Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Craig Kennedy, Member of South Dakota Senate
• Joni Cutler, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Ervin E. Dupper, Member of South Dakota Senate
• Ron J. Volesky, Member of South Dakota Senate
• Timothy Johns, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Roger W. Hunt, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Margaret V. Gillespie, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Mike Stevens, Member of South Dakota House of Representatives
• Brian Gosch (1996), current Majority Leader and former Speaker of the House of South Dakota House of Representatives.
• David Lust (1997), Majority Leader of South Dakota House of Representatives.

Tribal, Sovereign, Foreign Courts

• Creighton Leland Robertson (1976), Chief Judge of the Sisseton Wapheton Oyate Reservation Tribal Court
• Charles Abourezk (1992), current Chief Justice of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Supreme Court, 2014–present.

Noted Faculty

Current

• Frank Pommersheim, American Indian Law Professor, Camden 28 member, Chief Judge for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals and the Chief Justice of the Rosebud Sioux Supreme Court
• Patrick Garry, Constitutional Law Professor
• Brendan Johnson, adjunct Law Professor and former U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota.

Former

• Thomas Sterling, 1st Dean of the College of Law and U.S. Senator from South Dakota. Namesake of Sterling Honors.
• Bartlett Tripp, 1st Professor of Law, 25th U.S. Ambassador to Austria, last Chief Justice of Dakota Territory Supreme Court, and first president of the South Dakota Bar Association.
• Ralph E. Erickson, 5th Dean of the College of Law and 11th Deputy Attorney General of the United States during the Nixon Administration.
• Charles Hall Dillon, Professor of Law, U.S. Representative from South Dakota and Associate Justice of the South Dakota Supreme Court. Namesake of the Dillon Lecture Series.
• Roger Baron, Professor of Law, ERISA scholar, and counsel in Sereboff v. Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc.
• Mike Myers, Professor of Law, CEO of Mayo Clinic, and candidate for Governor of South Dakota.

See also

• Attorney General of South Dakota
• South Dakota Supreme Court
• United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota