Lorie Skjerven Gildea, Associate Justice 2006-2010; Chief Justice 2010-2023

Lorie Skjerven Gildea was Chief Justice from 2010-2023

Lorie Ann Skjerven was born October 6, 1961 in Plummer, Minnesota to parents Roger and Charlotte Skjerven. She has two siblings and attended Pershing High School in Plummer. After graduating in 1980 she then attended the University of Minnesota Morris and majored in Political Science. She graduated in 1983 after only 3 years and moved to Washington DC to attend Georgetown Law School. During the holiday break of her first year of law school, she married Andrew J. Gildea on January 1, 1984.

Lorie Gildea graduated from law school in 1986 and went to work at a Washington DC law firm, Arent Fox where she worked in commercial litigation. She spent 7 years there working cases around the country and in Finland. In 1993, she moved back to Minnesota and took a position as Associate General Counsel for the University of Minnesota. She worked there for 11 years until 2004.

She was involved with the Minnesota Bar Association, was on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission and was on the Board of Directors of the YWCA of Minneapolis between 2000-2004.

Gildea then began working in the Hennepin County Attorney's Office as a prosecutor of white collar crimes and stayed there a short time before being appointed by Governor Tim Pawlenty to the Fourth District Court bench in 2005.

By 2006, Governor Pawlenty appointed Gildea to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice. In 2010, Chief Justice Eric Magnuson resigned and Gildea was appointed Chief Justice, again by Governor Pawlenty. She held this role for 13 years.

Chief Justice Gildea led the Judicial Branch through the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rapid changes to the court system. She resigned on October 1, 2023. She then joined the law firm Greenberg Traurig in December 2023.

In her personal life, Gildea rides horses and is known as a Gopher sports fan, particularly of women's hockey.