Northern District of Illinois / Appointed 1982 / Served to 2021

John Albert Nordberg

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 and confirmed by voice vote, John Albert Nordberg was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He earned a law degree from University of Michigan Law School in 1950. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived
1926–2021
Appointed by
Ronald Reagan, 1982
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
University of Michigan Law School 1950
Succeeded by
Elaine E. Bucklo

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1982Northern District of IllinoisReagan (R)Voice vote

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Nordberg was assigned 3,883 district-court cases (1975–2014). Median time from filing to termination: 188 days across 3,880 closed cases.

Labor & ERISA18%
Civil rights16%
Real property13%
Prisoner & habeas13%
Contract12%
Other federal statutes10%
Other18%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

On appeal

Of 33 of Nordberg’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 30 were affirmed, 2 reversed or vacated, and 1 affirmed in part and reversed in part. This is a historical count of appellate outcomes for cases we could match, not a judgment of the judge, and not a complete record. How we count.

In our data, Nordberg authored 164 published opinions for the court (1982–2011). Most cited: Azeez v. DeRobertis (307 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 15 most-cited of 164 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

Who appointed John Albert Nordberg?
President Ronald Reagan appointed John Albert Nordberg to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 1982.
Was John Albert Nordberg appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
John Albert Nordberg was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was John Albert Nordberg's confirmation vote?
John Albert Nordberg was confirmed by voice vote on April 20, 1982. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was John Albert Nordberg on?
John Albert Nordberg was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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38 years on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).