( L to R) Carrie, Anne, Gail, Jack, and Dale
Successes and Challenges
Sandstrom notes some of the most challenging cases he encountered on the Court were related to family law.“ Those are some of the toughest cases,” he notes.“ Family law is difficult, but a place where we made real progress is the mediation program in family law. Family law appeals are down rather substantially.”
Two memorable cases he noted during his career on the Court include a case that ended sovereign immunity for the government and a school finance case. There were many positive aspects of serving on the Court, Sandstrom notes.“ I enjoyed hearing oral arguments, I enjoyed working with a lot of great people, and it’ s been fun watching my law clerks carrying on their careers,” he says.
Advice for the Future
For law students and young lawyers, he notes a career in law can be very rewarding.“ There’ s great opportunity to make a difference. Take advantage of law school; it’ s great training,” Sandstrom says.“ There’ s always room for good lawyers.”
Family and the Future
Sandstrom married Gail Hagerty, presiding judge of the South Central Judicial District, in 1993, and together they have three children. He says he did draw perspective from Hagerty’ s role as a trial judge and tried to apply it to his role on the Court.“ Trial judges have to make quick decisions, while the five Supreme Court justices get briefs, hear oral arguments, are assisted by law clerks, and take months to decide if the trial judge got it right.”
Sandstrom’ s children are now grown with impressive careers, ambitions, and college plans. Jack, an NDSU graduate, works as a technical director for a theater in the Washington, D. C., area. Carrie, a recent graduate of UND, worked in journalism, but is currently serving a year-long mission in Jerusalem and the West Bank. She plans to go to law school. Anne, a junior at Baylor University, is in the pre-med program. Sandstrom is also the son-in-law of Marilyn Hagerty, well-known Grand Forks Herald columnist, whose writing has garnered national attention.
He says he has some plans in place for his retirement, which include writing a couple of books.“ One book will cover interesting legal and political events in the first 25 years of statehood.”
“ I am also planning to travel to Jerusalem,” he notes.“ And I have a few other articles I would like to write because I feel too much of North Dakota’ s history is lost by not being written down. I have also been encouraged to write a book on my time serving in North Dakota.”
While he notes Judge Hagerty still has four years left of her current term on the bench, Sandstrom says she also has an idea for him in his retirement.“ She says I should clean the garage.”
8 THE GAVEL
Of his time serving North Dakota in both elected executive branch and judicial offices, Sandstrom boils it down to one thing he will miss significantly in his retirement.“ I am going to miss the people the most.”