Law Review Distinguished Alumnus
Vice President Walter F. Mondale
Vice President Walter F. Mondale, Volume 39 (Editor), was born in Ceylon, Minnesota. After helping Hubert H. Humphrey win election to the U.S. Senate in 1948, Mondale earned a political science degree from the University of Minnesota in 1951. He then entered the United States Army, where he served as a corporal. He graduated from the Law School in 1956 and clerked for Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Thomas Gallagher.
Mondale practiced law for three years in Minneapolis. In 1960, Mondale successfully managed Orville Freeman's campaign for governor. Governor Freeman, himself a Law Review alumnus, appointed Mondale as state attorney general. Mondale won election to the office in 1962, and served until 1964, when Governor Karl Rolvaag appointed him to the United States Senate, a seat vacated by Senator Humphrey's election to the Vice Presidency. Mondale served twelve years in the Senate.
In 1976, as Jimmy Carter's running mate, Mondale was elected Vice President of the United States. Mondale became the first Vice President to have an office in the White House, and served as a full-time participant and advisor in the Carter Administration. Mondale was the Democratic nominee for President in 1984.
Mondale returned to Minnesota in 1987 as a partner at Dorsey & Whitney. He served as a Distinguished University Fellow in Law and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at his alma mater. In 1990, he established the Mondale Policy Forum at the Humphrey Institute. He also served as chairman of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, an organization that conducts international programs to maintain and strengthen democratic institutions. He served on numerous non-profit boards of directors, including the Guthrie Theatre Foundation, Mayo Foundation, and University of Minnesota Foundation. He also sat on several corporate boards of directors.
From 1993 to 1996, Mondale served as United States Ambassador to Japan in the Clinton Administration. In 1997, along with former Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum, Mondale co-chaired the Campaign Finance Reform Project. He returned to Minnesota and Dorsey & Whitney in 1996, where he remains Senior Counsel in the firm's Asia practice group.
