How do judges of the Minnesota Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Minnesota Supreme Court / Joined 2013 / Active

David L. Lillehaug

Justice, Minnesota Supreme Court

David L. Lillehaug is a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, serving since 2013. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1954 · age 72
Tenure: Since 2013 · 13 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2013	Minnesota Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Augustana College
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Lillehaug authored 95 published opinions for the court (2013–2019), plus 33 dissents and 17 concurrences. Most cited: State of Minnesota v. Jose Arriage Soto, Jr. (135 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 145 of these were attributed to Lillehaug by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2014	State of Minnesota v. Jose Arriage Soto, Jr.†	855 N.W.2d 303	135
2014	Laura L. Walsh v. U.S. Bank, N.A.†	851 N.W.2d 598	117
2017	State v. Harris· Dissent†	895 N.W.2d 592	89
2015	State of Minnesota v. Kemen Lavatos Taylor, II†	869 N.W.2d 1	70
2014	State v. Nelson· Dissent†	842 N.W.2d 433	65
2018	Staffing Specifix, Inc. v. Tempworks Mgmt. Servs., Inc.†	913 N.W.2d 687	58
2015	State of Minnesota v. Clarence Bruce Beaulieu· Dissent†	859 N.W.2d 275	54
2015	Commerce Bank v. West Bend Mutual Insurance Company†	870 N.W.2d 770	48
2014	Doe 169 v. Brandon†	845 N.W.2d 174	48
2015	State of Minnesota, Respondent/Cross-Appellant v. Bonnie Ann Lindquist, Appellant/Cross-Respondent.· Dissent†	869 N.W.2d 863	42
2015	Jason Donald Matakis v. State of Minnesota· Dissent†	862 N.W.2d 33	41
2014	Alice Ann Staab v. Diocese of St. Cloud· Dissent†	853 N.W.2d 713	39
2014	State v. Yarbrough†	841 N.W.2d 619	38
2016	State of Minnesota v. Joshua Lee Myhre· Dissent†	875 N.W.2d 799	36
2014	Axelberg v. Commissioner of Public Safety· Dissent†	848 N.W.2d 206	35

Showing the 15 most-cited of 145 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Minnesota Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court is David L. Lillehaug on?: David L. Lillehaug is a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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13 years on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).