Breaking the Ice: ‘Every day it’s something new’ on the bench

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Hennepin County District Court Judge Edward T. “Ned” Wahl doesn’t hesitate to declare what he does as “the best job in the world.”

That’s why Wahl, who recently completed 13 years on the bench, encourages any lawyer who is thinking about applying for a judgeship to explore the opportunity.

“Every day you help somebody,” Wahl said. “Every day it’s something new.”

Wahl’s enthusiasm for his work as a judge is an extension of his longtime dedication to legal education for both lawyers and judges. That commitment led the Minnesota State Bar Association‘s Civil Litigation Section to present Wahl with its Advocate Award, which recognizes someone who has “significantly improved the civil litigation system in Minnesota.”

Wahl teaches at the National Judicial College and at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. He educated Minnesota’s district court judges on election law before the November 2024 election.

“If you teach, you become a better practitioner,” said, who has remained active with the Civil Litigation Section Council.

In private practice, Wahl was a civil litigator at what is now Faegre Drinker and Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly.

Name: Edward T. “Ned” Wahl

Title: Judge, Fourth Judicial District

Education: B.A., English, Northwestern University; M.A., English language and literature, University of Virginia; J.D., University of Chicago Law School

Q: Best way to start a conversation with you?

A: Tell me what you’ve been reading. I’m always interested in hearing what other people are reading.

Q: Why law school?

A: I like speaking and writing. I was really interested in debate, I was an English major, and I thought if I could put my interests and skills in reading and writing to helping people, that’d be a good idea. My brother, who was 15 years older, was practicing law and became a judge, and was pretty influential too.

Q: What are you reading?

A: A book by Irish novelist Niall Williams called “This is Happiness.” It’s really good. John Updike’s short stories. A biography of Hitler and a biography of Darwin.

Q: Pet peeve?

A: I’m surprised at people who have allowed their communication skills to go stagnant. We need to be cutting-edge communicators in writing and speech.

Q: Best part of your work?

A: I sure love talking to people. I love hanging around with lawyers. I love working with people who have problems. And working with other people, mostly lawyers, to solve the problems of their clients.

Q: Most challenging?

A: Probably the same. It’s difficult to read people and adapt to their needs. You can have people who are deeply mired in denial, they’re not sophisticated about the law or they’re blinded by their own sense of rightness, and you have to find ways to get through to people. You have to adapt all the time.

Q: Favorite activity away from work?

A: I read a lot, but I also like music. I play the guitar in the banjo. I spend as much time as I can with my family. My wife has three kids, I have two kids, and we have grandchildren, and that’s very important.

Q: Where would you take someone visiting your hometown?

A: I’m from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The older parts of town, near the university, large old houses and lots of big trees, it’s a pretty place to walk around or ride a bike.

Q: Legal figure you admire?

A: The judge I clerked for, Judge Gerald Heaney, worked on the United States Court of Appeals. He lived in Duluth. Our circuit runs from Minnesota to Missouri, so we have northern progressive experimental kind of states that have traditionally been part of one view of government, and Missouri and Arkansas and states that have been a little more conservative. He worked on desegregation cases, on lots of the issues of justice in the ’70s and ’80s. He was a great guy to work for thinking about those issues.

Q: Misconception about your work?

A: I’m surprised when people — lawyers, sometimes not lawyers — say, “Oh, you’re a judge? I could never do that.” Good judging is good parenting. It’s thoughtful reading, it’s being fair, it’s thinking about the rule of law. It’s challenging, and not everybody can do it, but a great many people can by simply doing those things, by being a wise and thoughtful person.