[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2806-S2807]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO MARILYN SKOGLUND
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I would like to take a moment to pay
tribute to a remarkable and unique person, Vermont Supreme Court
Justice Marilyn Skoglund, who will soon be retiring after serving 25
years with the Vermont judiciary.
Justice Skoglund is what we all want to see in a jurist and public
servant. She is dedicated, personable, and highly committed to the rule
of law, but her path to the Vermont Supreme Court was anything but
typical. As a single mother working hard to get by in the 1970s, law
school was not an option. Instead, she took advantage of Vermont's
``Reading the Law'' approach that allowed her to study while serving as
an apprentice of sorts with the Vermont Attorney General's office.
After being admitted to the Vermont Bar, she would go on to serve as
chief of the civil law and public protection divisions in the AG's
office before being appointed to the bench in 1994 by then-Governor
Howard Dean. She would be elevated to the supreme court just 3 years
later. At the time, she was only the second woman to serve on Vermont's
highest court. Today, women make up the majority of its five justices.
I have had the pleasure of knowing Justice Skoglund during her many
years of living and working in my hometown of Montpelier. Her personal
story was so compelling that she was my first choice in 2008 to keynote
Vermont's Women's Economic Opportunity Conference, an annual event I
have now hosted for 23 years.
But no tribute to Justice Skoglund would be complete if it did not
mention her keen sense of humor. Perhaps it is this trait that has so
deftly served her these many years, for as serious as the supreme court
must be in delivering justice, Marilyn Skoglund has demonstrated time
and again the benefit of
[[Page S2807]]
laughter in our lives. She finds the time to appreciate what some might
only see as mundane; she cherishes her friendships, and she mentors
those who will succeed us. By her own account, she has led a full life.
I ask unanimous consent that these excerpts of the May 1 Seven Days
profile of Justice Skoglund be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Seven Days, May 1, 2019]
Justice Served: Marilyn Skoglund to Retire From the Vermont Supreme
Court
(By Paul Heintz)
On her way out the door of her Montpelier home last Friday,
Vermont Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Skoglund rolled up her
right sleeve to show off her latest tattoo.
``I waited until my youngest daughter's wedding,'' the
justice said with a sneaky smile. ``I knew she wouldn't want
me to get it.''
Written in a simple black cursive on the inside of her arm
were the words, ``Jag ar matt,'' a Swedish expression often
uttered in her childhood home at the conclusion of a family
meal. ``I am satisfied,'' she translated. ``I am full.''
The 72-year-old jurist reflected for a moment--perhaps on a
life rich in family, friends, dogs and the law--and declared,
``I am satisfied! I mean, what else can you say? I'm very
lucky. I am satisfied.''
This week, Skoglund plans to inform Gov. Phil Scott that,
after 22 years on the state's highest court, she intends to
resign effective September 1.
Skoglund's retirement brings to a close one of the most
remarkable and least likely careers in the Vermont
judiciary--that of a struggling single mother who passed the
bar without a day of law school and worked her way up to
become the second female justice in state history.
Now, the famously irreverent attorney is looking for a new
challenge, be it the beginning Spanish class she plans to
take this fall or the online bartender course she's long
contemplated. ``I just need to take a chance and see what
else I can do before I drop dead,'' she said, letting loose
her trademark cackle.
Skoglund's sense of humor has long served as the
``collegiality glue'' on the court of five, according to
retired justice John Dooley. In her decades on the bench, she
has made it her mission to draw colleagues and staff members
out of their casework and into the world--through court
poetry slams, end-of-term parties and art openings at the
Supreme Court gallery she founded and oversees.
``I would describe her as a unifier,'' said Victoria
Westgate, a Burlington attorney who clerked with her from
2013 to 2014. The justice has also served as a role model to
a generation of young women in the law, Westgate said.
Though Skoglund may be best known for her larger-than-life
personality, colleagues describe her as a deeply serious
jurist with an unmatched work ethic.
``Of all the justices I've worked with, I think she
probably put . . . more effort into preparing and
understanding a case than any,'' said Dooley, who served
alongside Skoglund for two of his three decades on the court
. . .
Born in Chicago and raised in St. Louis, Skoglund had what
she describes as an ``idyllic childhood,'' replete with a
picket fence and parents who were ``the Swedish equivalent of
Ozzie and Harriet.'' Her father managed a steel treatment
plant and her mother, a former hairdresser and math tutor,
raised the future justice and her sister.
Skoglund spent seven years meandering her way through
Southern Illinois University--a fine arts major and ``hippie
folk singer'' who worked, for a time, as a graphic designer
for the inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller. She finally
earned her diploma after getting married and becoming
pregnant with her first daughter.
The young family moved to Vermont in 1973 so that
Skoglund's husband could take a job teaching painting and
printmaking at Goddard College. They rented a small,
uninsulated cottage on a 500-acre dairy farm in Plainfield.
Skoglund learned to milk cows, taught photography and worked
as an editor at Goddard. The marriage didn't last, though,
and soon she was raising her daughter on her own.
Skoglund found herself relying upon the generosity of
Walter Smith, the 68-year-old dairy farmer who served as her
landlord and her ``very own personal version of welfare.'' He
provided firewood when she needed it and let her dip raw milk
from the bulk tank. When she and her daughter were low on
food, they would join Smith for cans of chicken noodle soup
and mayonnaise sandwiches.
``He saw me through it,'' she said.
Skoglund's experience with poverty later informed her work
on the bench and, she said, gave her ``a very good
understanding of desperation and frustration and what it
causes people to do.'' ``I think I'm the only justice that's
ever been poor,'' she said.
After completing a six-month paralegal class, Skoglund
landed a clerkship in the Vermont Attorney General's Office
and began reading for the law--an alternative route to the
bar that enables aspiring attorneys to bypass law school
through independent study. It was a solitary, self-motivated
education, but I am disciplined,'' she wrote in a recent
essay about her unconventional path. ``In the central office
of the attorney general, I was the only student with about 50
`teachers.' ''
Skoglund spent four years clerking for Louis Peck, then the
chief assistant attorney general and later a Supreme Court
justice. She would run lines for Peck, an amateur actor, and
he would school her in the law. Skoglund credits him with
informing her ``legally conservative'' approach. ``I don't
take liberties with the language, and I don't read myself
into it,'' she said. ``It's not about you, Marilyn.''
Skoglund spent 17 years in the Attorney General's Office,
eventually serving as chief of its civil law division and
then its public protection division. She was appointed to the
Superior Court in 1994 and to the Supreme Court in 1997.
``It's like candy,'' Skoglund said of her current gig. ``I
have never been bored.''
The pace of the job wouldn't allow it. The supremes hear an
average of 120 full cases a year, plus many more appeals on
the so-called ``rocket docket.'' They're also consumed by the
myriad unseen administrative duties of the judicial branch,
such as divvying up its ``shoestring'' budget and managing
the lower courts.
``This all takes hours when all I want to be doing is
reading cases,'' Skoglund said. . . .
According to Skoglund, her acid prose occasionally gives
her law clerks ``panic attacks.'' But members of her tight
fraternity of former clerks praise her ``dedication to
raising a new generation'' of lawyers, as Todd Daloz put it.
``She has a real energy and a real humor and a real joy of
life,'' said Daloz, who clerked for Skoglund from 2009 to
2011 and now serves as associate general counsel for the
Vermont State Colleges System.
``When I hire [clerks], I explain that I'm hiring my best
friend for the next year,'' Skoglund said. ``I have to be
able to come in and vent and bitch and moan and get solace
from them.''. . .
For the past 35 years, Skoglund has lived in a tall, brown-
and green-shingled house perched above the Statehouse on the
southern boundary of Hubbard Park. The place is crammed with
books and artwork and features a ``wall of dogs'' consisting
of canine paintings she's collected. ``It's kind of a magical
place for me,'' she said of her home, where she does much of
her off-the bench legal work. ``It's just a sanctuary.''
Skoglund's two grown daughters, an obstetrician and a
neuropsychologist, have long since moved out. Her current
roommates include a 4-year-old goldendoodle named Johnny and,
during Vermont's four-month legislative session, Senate
Majority Leader Becca Balint (D-Windham). ``I always say I
have the best roommate,'' Balint said. ``Sometimes it's seven
o'clock in the morning and we're both crying because we're
laughing so hard.'' . . .
Last Friday morning, after showing off her tattoo, Skoglund
wrapped an unused dog leash around her waist and commenced
her three-block commute down the hill and past the Statehouse
to the Supreme Court. Johnny pranced along in front of her,
relishing his freedom.
Skoglund gushed about her daughters and 9-year-old
granddaughter, with whom she had spent the previous weekend.
``They're not thrilled with this tattoo--at least, the
younger one isn't,'' she conceded. ``But that's the way it
goes, ladies. Mom's gotta do what Mom's gotta do.''
Skoglund entered the court through a side door and showed
off one of her most concrete contributions to the
institution: an art gallery in the lobby of the building that
she's curated for the past 20 years.
``When I first got here, it was the hall of dead
justices,'' she said, referring to the oil paintings of her
predecessors, now relegated to the stairways and upper
floors. In their place was a series of mixed-media pieces by
the artist Janet Van Fleet consisting of red buttons and
plastic animals. Johnny led Skoglund up to her third-floor
office, which features a smiling boar's head mounted to a
wall. ``Behind you is Emmet, my amanuensis,'' she said,
gesturing at the hairy creature. ``A lot of those wild boar
things look scary and vicious. He's just sweet.''
Skoglund took a seat behind her cluttered desk and said,
with a resigned tone of voice, ``I've been here for 22 years.
It's time to go.''
Asked how she hoped people would remember her, Skoglund
answered without hesitation. ``I worked hard,'' she said. ``I
took my position very seriously. I never cut corners. I
understood the responsibility. That's what I hope.''
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