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

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Nebraska Supreme Court / Joined 1997 / Former Justice

Michael McCormack

Justice, Nebraska Supreme Court

Michael McCormack was a Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1997. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1939 · age 87
Tenure: 1997 · 29 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1997	Nebraska Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Creighton University
Creighton University

Judicial Record

In our data, McCormack authored 25 published opinions for the court (1997–2007), plus 5 dissents and 5 concurrences. Most cited: Gourley Ex Rel. Gourley v. Nebraska Methodist Health System, Inc. (126 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. 35 of these were attributed to McCormack 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
2003	Gourley Ex Rel. Gourley v. Nebraska Methodist Health System, Inc.· Concurrence†	663 N.W.2d 43	126
2000	Snyder Ex Rel. Snyder v. Contemporary Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C.†	605 N.W.2d 782	84
2007	Goodman v. City of Omaha†	274 Neb. 539	77
2007	State v. Harris†	274 Neb. 40	74
1999	Woodard v. City of Lincoln†	588 N.W.2d 831	71
2000	Bergan Mercy Health System v. Haven· Dissent†	620 N.W.2d 339	68
2005	State v. Washington†	269 Neb. 728	66
1997	Giese v. Stice· Concurrence†	567 N.W.2d 156	66
2007	Papillion Rural Fire Protection District v. City of Bellevue†	274 Neb. 214	47
1997	Dickerson v. County of Adams†	571 N.W.2d 269	46
2000	Derr v. Columbus Convention Center, Inc.†	604 N.W.2d 414	41
2003	DLH, Inc. v. Nebraska Liquor Control Commission†	665 N.W.2d 629	36
2004	Nelson v. Nelson· Concurrence†	674 N.W.2d 473	35
2000	Parnell v. Good Samaritan Health Systems, Inc.· Dissent†	620 N.W.2d 354	23
1997	Kindred v. City of Omaha Employees' Retirement System· Dissent†	564 N.W.2d 592	14

Showing the 15 most-cited of 35 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 Nebraska Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was Michael McCormack on?: Michael McCormack was a Justice of the Nebraska 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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29 years on the Nebraska Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).