Miles Lord

The Maverick Judge Who Brought Corporate America to Justice

Roberta Walburn (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

344 Seiten

2017
University of Minnesota Press (Verlag)
978-1-5179-0231-5 (ISBN)

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This is the story of Miles Lord (1919–2016), who rose from humble beginnings on Minnesota’s Iron Range to become one of the most colorful and powerful judges in the country, described as “an unabashed Prairie populist” and “a live-wire slayer of corporate behemoths.” He cut a wide swath through history on his path to the bench: coming of age alongside a cadre of young Midwestern social-gospel progressives, including Hubert H. Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, and Walter Mondale, in the days before they reached national fame; teaming with Bobby Kennedy as a hotshot prosecutor in pursuit of Jimmy Hoffa; and serving as the secret envoy between his friends Hubert and Eugene in their battle for the soul of the Democratic party in the historic 1968 presidential campaign. Later, after donning his black robe, he reshaped jurisprudence with precedent-breaking rulings—on issues ranging from women’s rights to consumer protection to education reform—and breaking trail when he ordered the shutdown of the Reserve Mining Company in northern Minnesota, which was spewing its waste into Lake Superior, in the most sensational trial of the early environmental era.

One of Judge Lord’s landmark cases—and interlaced as a centerpiece narrative of this book—involved the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device, which caused horrific infections in thousands of women, resulting in infertility and sometimes death. Author Roberta Walburn served as the judge’s law clerk during that litigation in 1983–84, and she provides a page-turning account (both an insider’s view and an in-depth chronicle) of what was called “one of the most disastrous episodes of American corporate misconduct.” In the end, more than 200,000 women received nearly $3 billion in compensation, and the Fortune 500 defendant was left in ruins. But Judge Lord was hauled up on judicial misconduct charges for his no-holds-barred actions that were certainly provocative but also stand as a timely reminder, even (or especially) today, of the challenges in balancing the scales of justice for a legal system that too often skews to the rich and powerful.

The author deftly weaves the Dalkon Shield drama into the larger story of the life of a one-of-a-kind man, crafting a sweeping and spirited true-life tale with not only her first-hand experiences as the judge’s law clerk but also with unrestricted access to the judge’s personal files. This is a rare and compelling portrait of a remarkable man and his place in both Minnesota and U.S. history.

Roberta Walburn is an attorney based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she has been named one of the most influential members of the legal profession in state history and recognized by the University of Minnesota for “shaping the legal landscape for the benefit of society.” Previously, she worked as a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Buffalo (N.Y.) Evening News and as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, as well as serving as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Miles Lord.

Prologue

1. Boyhood on the Range, 1919–1937

2. The Dalkon Shield Quagmire

3. Young Man in the Cities, 1939–1948

4. Courtroom No. 1

5. Hotshot Prosecutor, 1951–1952

6. Meeting the Enemy

7. Political Wunderkind, 1954–1960

8. Lawyers Objecting, Witnesses Stonewalling

9. Persecutor of Organized Crime, 1961–1965

10. Judge Lord Goes to Richmond

11. The People’s Judge, 1966

12. On the Trail of Secret Documents

13. Presidential Politics, 1968

14. Sweeping Corporate Headquarters

15. Election, 1968

16. The Brink of Settlement

17. Bold on the Bench, 1969–1972

18. The Speech

19. Judge Lord versus Reserve Mining, 1973–1974

20. A. H. Robins Fires Back

21. Reserve Mining versus Judge Lord, 1974–1976

22. The Judge Stands Accused

23. Fire and Brimstone, 1976–1981

24. Endgame

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Notes and Sources

Selected Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	31.01.2018
Zusatzinfo	22 black and white plates
Verlagsort	Minnesota
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
	Recht / Steuern ► Rechtsgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
ISBN-10	1-5179-0231-2 / 1517902312
ISBN-13	978-1-5179-0231-5 / 9781517902315
Zustand	Neuware