Thomson Reuters, Books For Africa Host Special Law Event

Minneapolis attorney and former Star Tribune reporter Roberta Walburn and Chief U.S. District Judge for Minnesota John Tunheim discussed the late federal Judge Miles Lord at a special event Nov. 14 at Thomson Reuters. The program was a partnership between Thomson Reuters and Books For Africa’s Law and Democracy Initiative.

Walburn, a former law clerk for Judge Lord, wrote a biography: Miles Lord: The Maverick Judge Who Brought Corporate America to Justice.

Lord 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 “live wire-slayer of corporate behemoths.” He presided over famous Reserve Mining case, ordering the mining company to shut down because of dumping taconite tailings into Lake Superior in the 1970s. And he presided over the Dalkon Shield case involving an intrauterine device that harmed thousands of women in the 1980s.

Judge Tunheim and Walburn discussed these and other cases and Lord’s impact on American political and legal life in the recording that follows. A special thanks to Sharon Sayles-Belton of Thomson Reuters for help in organizing the event.

Walburn announced at the event that she and Mike Ciresi, with whom she leads the Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children, donated 100 of her books to the Law and Democracy Initiative. Walburn is of counsel to the Ciresi-Conlin Law Firm. The Jack Mason Law and Democracy Initiative is named for the late Jack Mason, a federal magistrate judge.