Robert J. Sheran, born in Waseca Minnesota, graduated from St. Thomas College in Saint Paul, where he was a national debate champion, in 1936. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1939. Sheran was a special agent in the FBI from 1942-1945, guarding the secret Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb. He practiced law with Farrish Johnson in Mankato from 1945-1963, serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1947-1950. In January 1963, Sheran was appointed by Governor Elmer Andersen to the Minnesota Supreme Court. In 1970, he returned to the practice of law, citing the difficulty of paying his children’s college tuition on a Supreme Court justice’s $20,000 salary. However, he later agreed to be named Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court by Governor Wendell Anderson, serving from December 1973 to December 1981.
After retiring from the Supreme Court, Sheran practiced with the Minneapolis firm of Lindquist & Vennum for 20 years. During that time, he took a leave to serve in an interim capacity as the Dean of Hamline Law School. During his tenure at Hamline, while he was also caring for his infirm wife, Sheran oversaw a contentious ABA site inspection with great aplomb. When he returned to the firm, he continued to mediate and arbitrate cases well into his 80s.