Jim Shekleton served as General Counsel to the South Dakota Board of Regents from March 1989 through January 2016. Additionally, in 1994, he served for three months as Interim Executive Director. Jim came to South Dakota in 1984 to join the faculty at Northern State University, where he later became Vice President of Institutional Relations, Secretary and Treasurer of the Northern State University Foundation and University Counsel, and rose to the rank of Associate Professor, with tenure. He was licensed to practice law in Minnesota and South Dakota and was admitted to practice before the Federal District Court for the State of South Dakota, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. The University of Minnesota, Morris, granted Jim a baccalaureate in philosophy. The University of Oregon awarded him a doctorate in philosophy. The University of Minnesota Law School graduated him with a juris doctorate.
Jim’s practice involved substantial attention to public sector labor law, civil rights, state and federal constitutional law, employment law, lobbying, legislative process, privacy rights and administrative law, as well as forays into intellectual property law, public sector financing, Title IX, business organizations and public sector contracts. Jim’s dissertation was in metaethics, and he has substantial background in the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rene Descartes and Plato.
The ancients agreed that virtue preserves, while vice weakens, the shared purposes and trust which undergird resilient and stable communities. If so, there can be no greater endeavors than pressing the bounds of what can be known and training members of each new generation to apply that knowledge responsibly as they assume the leadership of their communities. Jim remains grateful for the privilege of having had, in his time, roles in the affairs of institutions dedicated to such purposes.