Trial Magazine
Books
Miles Lord The Maverick Judge Who Brought Corporate America to Justice
February 2018Miles Lord: The Maverick Judge Who Brought Corporate America to Justice
Roberta Walburn
University of Minnesota Press
400 pp., $29.95
www.upress.umn.edu
The story of Judge Miles Lord, a larger-than-life and controversial jurist, is an enjoyable book written to honor a true individualist who broke the mold.
Written by attorney Roberta Walburn, who clerked for the judge in the early 1980s, Lord’s biography unfolds with alternating views between his early life and a detailed synopsis of the Dalkon Shield litigation—an epic legal battle that spanned nearly 30 years. We learn about Lord’s upbringing on the Iron Range of Minnesota, his early political activism as a young attorney, and his rise to a federal judgeship.
By the time of his involvement in the Dalkon Shield cases in the 1980s, thousands of women had already been injured and even died after using the intrauterine device. The cases before Lord would pit local plaintiff lawyers against a Fortune 500 corporate behemoth, a story told time and again to this day.
Judge Lord made no secret of his concerns regarding corporate responsibility. His jurisprudence had already established this, notably in United States v. Reserve Mining Co. (380 F. Supp. 11 (D. Minn. 1974) (ordering a plant to stop dumping waste)) and in his oversight of antitrust litigation over antibiotic price-fixing. Walburn painstakingly recounts these cases with page-turning effect, as can be done only by someone who had a front-row seat.
One constant refrain echoes throughout the book: Judge Lord believed that “there is one set of laws for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and oppressed,” and that this was unjust. But he also believed in the promise of the judicial system and in the power of individuals to bring about change. These repeated expressions of personal motivation to protect people hurt by corporate America speak to the heart of every plaintiff lawyer’s mission for social justice.
The lessons imparted in the recounting of Judge Lord’s extraordinary life, which ended in December 2016, are invaluable to any attorney. His fierceness, unwavering commitment, and tireless energy are motivational, but it is his mantra—“I will not refuse to do the something that I can do”—that every legal professional would be wise to emulate.
Caragh Fay is the managing partner of the Fay Law Group in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at caraghfay@gmail.com.