Leonard Linquest

The Minnesota State Bar Association has awarded the annual David Graven Public Service Award to 90-year-old Linquist & Vennumco-founder Leonard Linquist. The award recognizes a MSBA member who exemplifies the high standards of the profession in combination with a commitment to public or community service. In addition to the award, a $1,000 contribution is givento the charity of Mr. Linquist's choice. Mr. Linquist split the donation, with $500 going to Minneapolis' Life's Missing Link, and $500 to the North Hennepin Mediation Center in Brooklyn Center, Minn. This is the second notable community award the firm has received this year. L&V earlier received the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce's Quality of Life Award for its Winter Closet Program, which was launched by Mr. Linquist. The Graven Award was presented April 26, 2003. The Graven Award was established in 1994 to recognize and encourage public service among lawyers. Recipients must have demonstrated substantial commitment to public or community service. Previous winners are John Tunheim, Judge Kevin Burke, Joseph OÕNeill, Edward J. Cleary, Eric Janus, Henry Savelkoul and Nancy Washburn McLean. David L. Graven, born in 1929 in Minneapolis, was a U.S. armed forces veteran and former University of Minnesota Law School professor. Graven died in 1991. Active in state politics, Graven attended the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Democratic National Conventions as a Minnesota delegate and served as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party State Executive Committee from 1964 through 1970. Graven ran for a seat in the U.S. House in 1962 but lost to Al Quie and ran for the democratic nomination for governor in 1970 but lost that bid to Wendell Anderson. Before Leonard Linquist stepped in, nurses were not treated as professionals and pro football players had no working agreement with the leagueÕs owners. Leonard Linquist has stepped in often during a life that reached 90 years Sept. 5, 2002. He has been repeatedly honored for a community service record that includes working with former Minnesota Vikings to help at-risk youths and authoring legislation that created Hennepin County's Baker Park. The Star Tribune of Minneapolis has called him "a remarkable winner." In addition to an extensive labor, civil rights and community leadership background, the founder of the Minneapolis law firm Linquist & Vennum served two terms as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. As a labor arbitrator, he helped settle one of Minneapolis' more violent labor strikes. He was a vital force in negotiating the National Football League Players Association's first contract with league owners. What makes the accomplishments listed on these pages more remarkable is he began to support his family at age 13, after his father died. When money got tight during his law school days, he left class to do construction work or pick potatoes in northern Minnesota. As you can see, Leonard Linquist worked his way to the top, then tried to pull others up there with him. Even at 90, the man for whom the Minnesota governor once provided protection from gangsters during a 1950s racketeering investigation is still asked to arbitrate labor issues. Leonard says he can't really retire because, "I like to be part of Main Street, and when you hear big labor problems, you're part of Main Street." (Robert Sheran served as Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1974-82. He was a partner at Linquist & Vennum from 1970-74 and 1982-91. He's a former dean of Hamline University Law School.) Leonard places a bumper sticker on a car during one of his campaigns for the Minnesota House of Representatives. He served in the House from 1955-59. Leonard Linquist arrived at the Law School of the University of Minnesota in the late '30s like a blast out of the pages of a Jack London novel. He was a few years older than the rest of us. The death of his father Ð a Swedish builder Ð at an early age had pushed Leonard into the role of family supporter before his time. His mother needed his help and he postponed his schooling to provide it. Jobs were hard to come by in those days. Most of the young men in the law school (women were a rarity) lived at home and were supported in part, at least, by parents. Leonard, uniquely, was married by that time to Elsie Kelly, a beautiful Irish girl from South Minneapolis Ð leading lady in the UniversityÕs Drama Department. Leonard somehow managed to work at a full-time job while going to law school earning enough to pay tuition for himself and Elsie, and to help his mother and his siblings. ÒEnoughÓ but barely enough. Nothing was wasted on food and clothing for himself. He looked in those days like the young Abraham Lincoln Ð only more gaunt. Leonard was our leader. In part, this was because he was older, more experienced, more energetic, more determined than most of us. More so, it was because he wouldnÕt have it any other way. In spite Ð or perhaps because Ð of this background, Leonard was a militant, political liberal destined, we thought, to lead the state in the tradition of Floyd B. Olson. (Strange, it seems, that he became an ardent Republican Ð a protŽgŽ of Luther Youngdahl Ð a labor-oriented voice in the liberal wing of the Republican party. This led later to his career in the legislature, his election as commissioner of public utilities, and his candidacy for Congress as a Republican running in a Democratic congressional district.). The Leonard Linquist of law school days has grown older, thicker and slower of physical movement. But except for this, he hasnÕt changed very much. He was an assertive, outspoken, blunt, energetic, determined person then as he has been ever since. He was intelligent enough to be a Law Review member and ranking student while working and maintaining a family. Interestingly, Dean Everett Fraser, who discouraged outside interests for the rest of us, was outspoken in his praise of LeonardÕs work habits. He never stepped backwards or sideways Ð everything for him was straight ahead. Above all else, he had a deep concern for others and a limitless capacity for sustained friendships Ð the qualities which have marked and accounted for his extraordinary professional career as a founder and leader of a remarkable law firm committed to professional excellence and public service.

Click Here to Close Window