Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Rosemary Shaw Sackett

Chief Judge Sackett, Okoboji, was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 1983 and elected chief judge in 1999. She was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She earned her bachelor's degree from Buena Vista College. Graduating cum laude in 1960, she then went to Drake University Law School and earned her law degree in 1963. She received her L.L.M. from the University of Virginia in 1990. In 2006 she received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from Buena Vista University.    

  

Prior to joining the court, she practiced law in Pocahontas and Spencer, Iowa for twenty years. She also served as an assistant County Attorney in Clay County.  She is a member of the Iowa Judges Association and of the American, Iowa State, Judicial District 3A and Dickinson County Bar Associations and the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys. She has served as chair of the Appellate Judges Conference of the American Bar, as president of the Council of Chief Judges of State Courts of Appeal, as chairman of the board of the Appellate Judges Institute, and as president of both the Judicial District 3A and Clay County Bar Associations. She has written and lectured on various legal topics and has served on a number of committees concerned with improving the law and for a number of years coached high school mock trial teams.  In 2007 she spent several weeks in Bahrain working as an appellate specialist and advising their Ministry of Justice on ways to improve its appellate system.