Thank you so much, Justice Page, for agreeing to this interview for The Judges’ Journal. I am still pinching myself that I have the honor of talking to you. You were a hero of mine when you played for the Vikings and Chicago Bears and again when you were on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Let’s start with some background.
I grew up in Canton, Ohio, and I went to a Catholic High School where there were only 4–5 students of color. I had the chance to play football, and I guess I was good enough to catch the eye of some college recruiters. And they were offering a scholarship and a college education. Notre Dame [ND] was one; Michigan State and Purdue were others. I thought that ND had the “brightest prospects” for life after college. But I stood out on that campus because out of roughly 6,000 students, there were only maybe 30–40 students of color, including international students. I just did not let that get in my way.
Notre Dame in the 1960s was pretty darned good for college and for football, right? What were your early influences that led to college and major collegiate sports participation?
My parents and family molded me, shaped me, and their influence had the greatest impact on the trajectory of my life. My family instilled a concern for fairness in me, and that was a motivation early in my life. It helped direct my choices.
At ND, the head coach was the legendary Ara Parseghian, of course. He was one of the great college coaches of that era. Part of my decision to go to ND related to its reputation in football. But by the time I headed off to college, I already had an interest in law. I knew that ND also had a real potential to help advance my interest in law. I was a kid in the 1950s, an era that saw dramatic change in so many ways, including race relations in America. I saw that often the center of that change came through the law. And I’ll say again that the biggest influence on me, the one that directed me to the legal field, was the case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Big cases can affect kids’ view of what is possible.
It is interesting that even as a college student, you could see that the way to effect societal change, especially race equality, was as a lawyer. Can you tell us more about that?
I saw the power that the law could have and the influence that individual lawyers could have. Thurgood Marshall and the other lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education created a game plan to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, the separate-but-equal case, and then they did just that. That’s pretty powerful. What it did for me was it created hope—hope that you could change state-sponsored segregation. Still, we have a way to go today. But the law has the power to bring about change in ways that are effective and meaningful.
I understand your inspiration, but I am interested in your perspiration too. You went to law school while you were playing pro football. How the heck did you manage to do that?
My professional football career lasted from 1967–1981. My law school career was less continuous. I was actually a law school dropout! In the second year of my pro football career, I enrolled at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, but I just could not keep up, so that didn’t last too long. But “if at once you don’t succeed, try, try again.” My passion for becoming a lawyer did not waver, and I later enrolled at the University of Minnesota Law School. I graduated in 1978. But law school is hard—don’t get me wrong. It’s not hard in the sense of overbearing because you’re learning and growing. It is exciting. I loved the law school experience. When I enrolled in the University of Minnesota, I was starting my ninth year of professional football. So, I found law school to be a nice change of pace. I really loved the experience.
Not everyone remembers law school as an exciting experience. What aspects of law school did you enjoy the most? Was there anyone that you’d identify as particularly influential at the law school?
I’d have to say that it was learning how to think through problems in a logical way. We were taught to analyze and work through problems in an orderly way, and that was new to me. Legal analysis is a highly disciplined way of thinking.
As far as professors, there were many professors whom I came to look up to. It is hard to single out any one professor or teacher, so I will not do that. We had an excellent faculty that challenged us. It is that challenge that helps develop the skill of legal reasoning.
I know you mentioned that your high school and college classes were not very diverse, at least racially. How diverse was your law school class?
When I started in law school, it was just at the beginning of when women were coming to law school in bigger numbers; you could even say it was the beginning of when they were even allowed to attend. And there certainly were not many law students from diverse backgrounds. I just didn’t spend a lot of time focused on that.
But I want to point out that by the time I joined the Supreme Court, there were several women already on the bench. Those female judges were often the only women in their law school classes. They had come through a lot. And in many instances, they got out of law school and were not able to find the kind of employment that they had planned for. Those early days were challenging times for women in the law.
So, you retired from professional football in 1981. Let’s talk about the path of your legal career. Did you go right into practice?
Because I was still playing football, I practiced part-time starting in 1979 in the off-season. My first practice was in labor and employment at Lindquist & Vennum (now Ballard Spahr) in Minneapolis. The firm represented the NFL Players Association, and Leonard Lindquist was the first NFLPA general counsel, so the fit was obvious. Most of my work at the firm was on the employee side. When I left the law firm in 1985, I went to the Minnesota attorney general’s office, where I represented the state, meaning I worked on the employer side. That work gave me the opportunity to see both sides of the coin. Many things that I learned in football translated to the practice of law. One of the things I learned on the football field is that understanding the other side of the ball, the offense for me, was invaluable. We call that “opposition research” today.
Were you a courtroom lawyer? And if so, what was it like to go to court in Minnesota and to see Alan Page, a football Hall of Famer, on the other side?
Few of the cases I had made it to the courtroom. As with most lawyers, I was trying to resolve things without going to court, so when we ended up in court, it was not ideal.
But I do recall that the first time I went to court, it had something to do with the Pillsbury Company and a shipment of goods that got waylaid. The lawyers on the other side made much ado about having “Alan Page” appear in court against them, I guess saying it was unfair or something. As a new lawyer, I didn’t know my way around the courtroom and did not quite know how to react to that kind of argument. But then, as soon as the hearing was over, all the lawyers stopped in the hallway and were looking for autographs. I said, hey, I’m just here to do my work. I realized that my work could not be separated from who I was, and I’d need to deal with that.
When you transitioned to the bench, was it harder on you due to your notoriety?
No, I learned along the way that I can only try to control the things I have the ability to control. Why be concerned with how others perceive me? I cannot control those perceptions. Not my problem.
You joined the Minnesota Supreme Court as a justice in 1993. What was the process by which you went to the court?
We have a “hybrid” approach in Minnesota. Most judges start by appointment by the governor when there is an opening and then run for election to a six-year term. My path was different. I was not appointed by a governor; I was elected to the bench in the first instance in 1998. I was then elected in 2004 and again in 2010 to two six-year terms. Minnesota has a mandatory retirement age for judges of age 70, which I reached in August 2015. So, I had to retire before completing my third term. [Editor’s note: In the 2004 election, Justice Page had the largest vote in history in favor of a Minnesota Supreme Court candidate.]
The best part of my job, my favorite part, was working with law clerks and interns. I loved working with these young people. What did you love most about the job?
Certainly, seeing the clerks as they develop as lawyers and as people has been very important. I enjoy texting back and forth with them and learning about their lives. One former clerk just recently sent me pictures of his two children, and it was just heartwarming. But for my time on the bench, I loved every minute I was able to serve. Not everything that comes through the courtroom is thrilling, of course—how intellectually challenging can your 30th example of one type of case be? But even those repetitive things—I loved being part of the process of deciding those matters as well. I always kept in mind that there are people behind every case.
Appellate courts require judges to work very closely with one another. How about your fellow judges? Was it a collegial court?
Very much so. While the judges change over time, one thing that was consistent in my time on the bench is that the judges always put the institution first, not themselves. Sure, everybody has an ego. Still, I consistently saw that the judges on our court recognized that the institution was there before us and that it will be there after us. The question we had was: “While we are here, are we making the institution better?”
The lawyer readers of this column will be interested in reading what qualities in lawyers make them effective in your experience.
The best lawyers were the ones who listened and were honest with the bench. Some lawyers try to slip things by you—that never works. A lawyer needs to confront the weaknesses of their case in an open and honest way to make the best case possible for their client.
In 22 years on a state supreme court bench, you get to see some very good lawyering and some very bad lawyering. It never ceased to amaze me to see lawyers who, in their argument, would become combative with the court. It’s not to suggest that you can’t be forceful, but being combative doesn’t get you very far. Being clear and concise is what matters—not trying to use sleight of hand or trying to misrepresent or make the facts seem something that they weren’t. It’s not a good look.
One other thing I appreciated in brief writing is when lawyers were actually brief in their presentations. Most weren’t. Excessively long briefs are just not persuasive.
You launched the Page Education Foundation long before you joined the court, and you have chosen to focus the work on young students. What was your thinking behind that focus?
In 1988, my late wife and I decided it was time to do something beyond talk and started the foundation. We started small with the goal of encouraging, motivating, and helping young men and women of color to pursue post-secondary education. We thought we could create a foundation that created hope for children of color. The foundation provides financial assistance for students in Minnesota to pursue college. We had the idea of offering grants to students who agree to work with younger students. The idea is to teach students to mentor, like how judges and law clerks work together. Our Page Scholars commit at least 50 hours of tutoring and mentoring to younger students. As of 2023, we have provided financial support to over 8,500 Page Scholars, who, in turn, have mentored over 55,000 children.
I was involved in all aspects of the foundation until I joined the court in 1993. My wife took over and turned it into what it is today. We have 524 scholars this year, each one of them doing their service with children. It’s been very rewarding to watch the students’ progress.
We are available to all children of color with all sorts of dreams and all range of abilities. Our scholars go to vocational college, public schools, private schools, so long as there is an academic institution that will accept them.
I am also aware that there are two schools that bear your name. What motivated you to agree to those naming honors?
To have someone come to you to ask to use your name on a school is a high honor, coupled with the fact that the first one was a middle school. The students in the school created a movement to rename the school. It was Alexander Ramsey Middle School. Ramsey’s history included some aspects [the treatment of Indigenous people] that the students felt didn’t represent who they were. They wanted a change. They narrowed their choices down to four or five individuals who they were considering. Ultimately, the community asked if I would be willing to permit the school to be renamed the Justice Page Middle School. Given my time on the court, I thought it would be appropriate. What they were seeking was justice, given their former school’s namesake. Being honored in that way is special. We have a lot of thoughts about young people, but to me, they can be perceptive.
At our Annual and Midyear Meetings, the ABA Judicial Division works with high school students who might have an interest in a legal career. Have you done outreach with students on a similar basis?
At the court, we started doing oral arguments at high schools around the state, and we’d go to the high school and hold an argument. Real cases. It gave the opportunity to show young people what our justice system is like. That was another highlight of my time on the court—being able to answer their questions after the arguments in real time.
Finally, my favorite point of light in your background is that you and your daughter have been publishing children’s books. Our readers will be interested in the background.
We just finished our fifth children’s book. One of the things you asked earlier: what I loved about the court. If I had to put one thing at the top of the list, it would be opinion writing and working with words. With children’s books, it’s another opportunity to work with words—working on books that put a smile on your face.
I have asked a lot of questions, but is there anything else you’d like included in the article?
We are living in a time when the trust and confidence that we place in our systems have been eroded, particularly our judicial branches. The only power that courts have is the trust of the people. When people think we have our thumb on the scale, we’re in trouble. We have to recommit to impartiality, to being fair, and to treat everyone who comes into the courtroom respectfully. Both in fact and in perception, we can’t be viewed as only being politicians in black robes.
If we are honest, if we tell the truth, say what we mean, and mean what we say, that trust and confidence will be there. Without truth, we can’t be trusted. Without trust, we have nothing. If we can’t trust our courts, we have nothing. It is critically important to use an old cliché: “We have to be purer than Caesar’s wife.” Judges are human beings with our own views, and we work very hard to take our personal views out. It’s something I hope I was successful at: challenging my own thinking and accounting for my own personal biases. We are there to exercise our judgment, not to impose our will.
Let me close with this: You were the first African American on the Minnesota Supreme Court. We are facing pushback on the idea that it is important to have judges who come from a diversity of backgrounds. You are uniquely qualified to comment on that point. Would you?
Gladly, I was the first African American on the court, but, as I said, we had a majority of women on the bench. People would ask what it’s like to serve on a court with a majority of women, but that’s all I knew. Being the first African American, a day late and a dollar short, why should I be the first? Given how old the state was, it’s important to have representation of everybody to the extent that we can. We serve the people of our state, and when people see a court that doesn’t look like them, that’s the kind of thing that can erode trust and confidence. Having people of color serve doesn’t necessarily change any outcomes. We talk about diversity, but the reality is that having diverse backgrounds is important because everybody sees things differently. How do I grow and learn from my colleagues? Diversity enriches the end product. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
