What You Do Matters

Fall Appreciation Luncheon Tuesday, November 24, 2015 Great River Ballroom InterContinental Saint Paul Riverfront In celebration of SMRLS’ supporters and volunteers What You Do Matters SMRLS gratefully acknowledges our 2015 Luncheon sponsors: Elimination of Bias 1.0 Approved CLE Credit - #209457 Special thanks to our event and table sponsors: 3M Alliance Bank Barnes & Thornburg Bassford Remele Briggs and Morgan Chestnut Cambronne Chuck Dietz Family & Friends Dorsey & Whitney Faegre Baker Daniels Felhaber Larson Foley Mansfield Fredrikson & Byron Greenberg Traurig Harper & Peterson Kirsch Family & Friends Larson • King Lindquist & Vennum Lommen Abdo Meagher & Geer Medica Minnesota Continuing Legal Education Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Minnesota State Bar Association Mitchell Hamline Law School Norton Rose Fulbright Olander Law Group RCBA Diversity Committee Robichaud & Alcantara Robins Kaplan Sieben Polk Stinson Leonard Street Justice Esther Tomljanovich, MN Supreme Court (Ret.) Thomson Reuters Winthrop & Weinstine Xcel Energy Additional tables reserved by the following courts: Senior Judge Michael Davis and Judge Donovan Frank United States Magistrate Judge Steven Rau and Judge Tony Leung United States District Court, District of Minnesota Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings Minnesota Supreme Court Minnesota Court of Appeals Judges of the Second Judicial District The Fragility of the Rule of Law: What You Do Matters Welcome Luncheon Emcee Steven J. Kirsch, Esq. Briggs and Morgan Law Firm, Chair of Campaign for Legal Aid Lunch Served Bench & Bar Benefit Presentation Kelly Olmstead, Esq. President, Ramsey County Bar Association Lifetime Leadership Award Honorable Justice Alan Page (Ret.) Minnesota Supreme Court Presented by Jessie R. Nicholson, SMRLS CEO Elimination of Bias CLE 12:30-1:30PM Honorable Susan Richard Nelson “The Fragility of the Rule of Law” & Dr. Michael Bornstein, Ph.D. “From Prison to Freedom” Q & A Closing Remarks Elimination of Bias 1.0 Approved CLE Credit - #209457 What You Do Matters Lifetime Leadership Award Recipient Justice Alan Page (Ret.) Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan C. Page (Ret.) was born August 7, 1945, in Canton, Ohio. He graduated from Canton Central Catholic High School in 1963, and received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame in 1967 and his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1978. After graduating from law school, Alan Page worked as an attorney for a law firm in Minneapolis, then served seven years as an attorney in the office of the Minnesota Attorney General. He sought election to the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1992 and won, becoming the first African American on the court and one of the few associate justices ever to join the court initially through election, rather than appointment by the governor. When Justice Page was reelected in 1998, he became the biggest vote-getter in Minnesota history. He was reelected in 2004 and 2010 and served until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2015. Law was Alan Page’s second career; he was first known for his skills in football both in college and in the NFL. At Notre Dame, Alan Page led the school’s storied football program to the 1966 national championship, and in 1993 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Alan Page was a first-round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings in 1967 and he played for the Vikings until 1978. The last three years of his football career were with the Chicago Bears, 1978 - 1981. During his career, Alan Page played in 218 consecutive games, earning All-Pro honors six times, and was voted to nine consecutive Pro Bowls. In 1971 he was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, becoming only the second defensive player in history to be named MVP. In 1988 Alan Page was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Also in 1988, Justice Page and his wife, Diane, founded the Page Education Foundation, which assists students of color in their pursuit of post-secondary education. To date, the foundation has awarded over $12 million in grants to more than 6,000 individuals. Justice Page and his daughter, Kamie Page, have written two children’s picture books, The Invisible You (2014) and Alan and His Perfectly Pointy Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky (2013). Honorary Remarks Honorable Susan Richard Nelson United States District Court, District of Minnesota Judge Susan Richard Nelson was appointed as a United States District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota on November 21, 2010, by President Barack Obama, shortly following her confirmation by the Senate with unanimous consent. She had previously served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota since 2000, having been reappointed to a second term in 2008. After obtaining her Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion with high honors, and studying the cello at Oberlin College, Judge Nelson went on to study law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where she represented the law school on their trial moot court team. Judge Nelson completed her legal studies and obtained her law degree in 1978. Thirty- five years later, in 2013, Judge Nelson was thrilled to be asked to return to her law school alma mater to deliver its Commencement Address. Following law school, Judge Nelson worked for Reed Smith Shaw & McClay in Pittsburgh from 1978 - 1980 and Tyler, Cooper, Bowerman & Keefe in Connecticut from 1980 - 1983. In 1983, Judge Nelson was married to Tom Nelson and they returned to his native Minnesota to practice law. Shortly thereafter, she joined the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi where she practiced law for 17 years, until she was appointed to the bench in 2000. Her legal practice focused primarily on complex civil litigation, including product liability and mass tort matters. The highlight of her career in private practice was the privilege to serve on the trial team for the successful landmark 1998 Minnesota Tobacco Trial. The trial team was honored on many occasions, including being nationally recognized by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, the Minnesota Trial Lawyers Association and the Minnesota Women’s Press. Throughout her career, Judge Nelson has been an active supporter of women in the law. She served as President of Minnesota Women Lawyers, currently serves on their Advisory Board and was the recipient of their Myra Bradwell Award. She also was a recipient of the Judicial Professionalism Award from the Hennepin County Bar Association. Since 2000, she has also been active and served as a Director of the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. What You Do Judge Nelson and her husband Tom Nelson are the proud parents of two adult children, Rob and Michael Nelson. Matters CLE Speaker Michael Bornstein, Ph.D. Dr. Michael Bornstein is a graduate of Fordham University in New York and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry from the University of Iowa. That’s where Michael met his wife of nearly fifty years, Judy, who was studying for her undergraduate degree in Special Education. Together, they moved to Indiana and then to New Jersey where Michael enjoyed a long career in Biotech research at Eli Lily and Johnson & Johnson. Michael and Judy raised four children and have welcomed eleven grandchildren to their ever-growing family. Their daughter, Debbie, now a writer and producer at NBC news, will be helping to moderate the slideshow presentation today. In addition to her work at NBC and MSNBC, Debbie has just completed a manuscript about her father’s story and in her research learned miraculous facts about Michael’s survival and the events surrounding it that even he did not previously know. Michael is one of the youngest known survivors of Auschwitz. He managed to evade death in a murder mill where more than one million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. The average lifespan for a child in Auschwitz was just two weeks. Michael was there for more than six months. Video and photos of him on liberation day, January 27, 1945, are seen around the world, displayed on museum walls and played on newscasts every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day. However, Michael never really shared his story publicly until just recently. Armed with new information about his survival, some of it gained from SS documents that were stored and saved, Michael is now speaking at schools and synagogues and telling his story. His hope, of course, is that no one should ever forget. Credo of the Campaign for Legal Aid Our constitutive call to equal justice surely interrogates and accuses us. It judges us and finds us lacking. The answers we offer and the excuses we provide do not satisfy. Not if we are what we claim to be. Not if we are the sort of country we profess. For we do, every day, make such promises. We swear our allegiance to them. We say they define us. They mark us as Americans. They cast our national character. They set forth our mission. They constitute our charge our foundational creed. They charge us. They charge us because somewhere we read… 1. Somewhere we read, “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all are created equal.” 2. And somewhere we read, of “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 3. And somewhere we read, that “history will judge us on the extent to which we’ve used our gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of our fellows.” 4. And somewhere we read, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 5. And somewhere we read, “we have to believe the things we teach our children, believe them and make them real.” 6. And somewhere we read, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” 7.

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