Judge Susanne C. Sedgwick ’56
1931-1988
The Honorable Susanne C. Sedgwick ’56 was a distinguished judge in Minnesota for decades and beloved by her family, friends, and colleagues. In her honor, they established the Sedgwick Scholarship Endowment, which has assisted women with children ever since.
Sedgwick married her husband, Alfred Sedgwick, while attending law school. According to him during her Hennepin County Bar memorial, “Our daughter, Ann, was born on the first day of her Christmas recess in her senior year, so she missed no classes. She was expecting our son, Richard, at the time of her swearing-in ceremony for her admittance to the bar. Daughters Elizabeth and Sara followed, and we were engulfed with diapers for a few years.”
After Sedgwick’s children were in school, she worked as a Legal Aid attorney. In 1968, she became the first woman to serve as assistant attorney for Hennepin County; in 1970, she achieved another first by winning a seat as municipal court judge running against an incumbent. In 1974, she was appointed district court judge before being appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1983 where she remained until just two months before she passed away in 1988.
Further reading
“Judge Sedgwick Enjoys Her New Vocation” by Chris Brix (William Mitchell Opinion – Volume 14, No. 3, May 1972, p.5).