Judgment You Can Trust

As a lawyer, my service to my community extends beyond the office. I have earned a reputation for being levelheaded and fair, which has brought additional opportunities to serve both within the legal field and beyond it. Some of the most fulfilling experiences I have had to date have been serving as Chair of the Pattern Jury Instructions Commission for North Dakota, President of the North Dakota Association for Justice, and President of the Church Council for First Lutheran Church of Watford City. Leading those groups has taught me a lot about bringing different opinions together to achieve a shared purpose.

My judicial philosophy is built on humility and restraint. Judges should not assume that they understand a case better than the parties in the case or that they know what the law should be better than the political branches who write and execute the law. An appellate judge should always be mindful and respectful of the work that the parties, trial court, and others put into a case.

By the time a legal question arrives at the Supreme Court, it has been through democratic elections, committee debates, the Legislature’s final votes, and the Governor’s signature. By the time an individual case reaches the Supreme Court, it comes with the accumulated experiences of the parties who lived the case, the hard work of the lawyers who presented the case, the testimony of witnesses, and the decisions of a judge and, in many cases, a jury of citizens.

Those experiences are real and all of those people perform their roles with a sincere belief in their viewpoints and in making our state and our nation the best versions of themselves. The judiciary does not exist to second-guess any of that work, but rather to preserve the rule of law throughout the process.