Judge Frank Racek with
his wife, Margaret, and
their granddaughter, Elsie.
JUDGE FRANK RACEK:
A career spanning three decades on the bench
By Kylie Blanchard, Clearwater Communications
After more than 32 years on the bench, East Central District Judge
Frank Racek will step down at the end of his term this year. He
began his career as a Cass County judge in Fargo in the 1980s and
was first elected a district judge in 1994. “You can do a lot of good to
help individuals in this job,” says Racek. “I will miss the ability to be
productive and to do important work for the community, profession,
and those involved.”
A CAREER IN LAW
Racek grew up in Moorhead, Minn., and went to college at Saint
John’s University in Collegeville, Minn. He then attended the
University of North Dakota School of Law and began his career in
private practice at the Fargo law firm of Lanier, Knox and Olson.
He says he knew he wanted to be a lawyer in junior high school.
“My father was an insurance adjuster, so I grew up in that business
and worked for him in college and through law school,” he notes.
“My father worked with a lot with lawyers, and I saw a lot of
litigation through his business. I got my interest in law through this
work.”
In 1988, he was appointed as a county judge in Fargo, and although
he had just turned 31, he says he was ready for the position. “I had
always wanted to be a judge and that opportunity presented itself at
that time,” he says.
He served as a county judge until the reorganization of the state’s
court system and was then elected as a judge in the East Central
District in 1994. He was re-elected in 1996, 2002, 2008, and 2014,
and has served as the district’s presiding judge since 2010.
COURT SYSTEM CHANGES
Racek says during his career, he was part of many changes in the
state’s court system. “I saw the reorganization of the whole court
system, and the substantial reduction in the number of judges in the
1990s,” he notes.
After county and district judgeships were merged, Racek says Cass
County had to be creative in its approach to courtroom assignments
and use, which led to a 10-year building project to meet the needs of
the district.
In 2009, he was also part of helping to rebuild and improve the
court’s case management system, a move to get more of what the
court was doing into real-time and transition to a paperless system.
He served on the Court Technology Committee, Judicial Planning
10 THE GAVEL