Oscar Hallam, Associate Justice 1913-1923

Justice Hallam was an instructor at the St. Paul College of Law from its beginning in 1901

Oscar Hallam was born on a farm in Linden, Wisconsin on October 19, 1865. He attended district school there and in 1881, entered the Dodgeville high school, followed by the University of Wisconsin in 1882. He graduated there in 1887, and graduated from the Wisconsin University Law School in 1889. Hallam moved to Minnesota in 1889 and settled in St. Paul, where he was admitted to the bar. He married Edith Lott in 1892 and they had two children: Cornelia, born in 1893, and Russell, who was born in 1897 and died in 1908.

Hallam practiced law until January 1, 1905, when he became a District Judge, Second Judicial District. He was an instructor at the St. Paul College of Law from its beginning in 1901. He was elected Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1912, serving from January of 1913 until his resignation in May 1923. He died September 23, 1945.

You may read more about the life and work of Justice Hallam in the Minnesota Supreme Court Historical Society's book: Testimony: Remembering Minnesota’s Supreme Court Justices, which is the source of this brief biography.