Oscar Hallam was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

, judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

, and academic from Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. He served as a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court

Minnesota Supreme Court

The Minnesota Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Minnesota and consists of seven members. The court was first assembled as a three-judge panel in 1849 when Minnesota was still a territory. The first members were lawyers from outside of the region who were appointed by...

 from 1912 to 1924, and served as a Minnesota state Second District Court judge from 1905 to 1912. Hallam was a member of the faculty (1901-1945), dean (1919- 1941) and president until 1945, of William Mitchell College of Law

William Mitchell College of Law

William Mitchell College of Law, or WMCL, is a private, independent law school located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Accredited by the American Bar Association , it offers full and part-time legal education in pursuit of the Juris Doctor degree....

.

In 1924, Hallam was a candidate in the Minnesota state primary election for the office of United States Senator. He was also Chairman of the Section on Criminal Law of the American Bar Association. In 1926, he served as Chairman of the Minnesota Crime Commission and originated the Minnesota State Department of Criminal Apprehension and established the full-time Minnesota Board of Parole. He also served as President of the Ramsey County Bar Association, was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Twin City Unit of the Shriners Hospital for Children, and Chairman of the 4-Minute Men of Minnesota during World War I.

Hallam received his Bachelor of Arts in 1887 and Bachelor of Laws in 1887 from the University of Wisconsin.

In 1892, Hallam married Edith Lamb Lott

Bushrod W. Lott

Bushrod Washington Lott was an American politician in the Minnesota Territory in Saint Paul, Minnesota who served as United States Consul from 1862 to 1865...

( 1870 - 17 July 1942) in St. Paul; their daughter, Mrs. Corneila Hallam Miller (16 April 1893 - 20 February 1975) served as President of the St. Paul Women City Club and writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In 1933, Hallam sent his grandson, Stanley F. Miller, Jr. (3 October 1916 - 21 September 1991) to represent Minnesota at the Boy Scouts of America World Jamboree in Godollo, Hungrey.

Image: Oscar Hallam
Minnesota Historical Society Photograph Collection ca. 1932 |

Image: Edith Lott Hallam (Mrs. Oscar Hallam)
Minnesota Historical Society Photograph Collection ca. 1930

Memorial from volume 220 of Minnesota Reports for Associate Justice Oscar Hallam…p.1 of 4

A few years before his death in 1946, Judge Oscar Hallam of St. Paul wrote a series of stories about his youth on a Midwest farm of the 1870's and assembled them in a manuscript volume which he called "Bloomfield and Number Five". The original manuscript, "Bloomfield and Number Five" [by] Oscar Hallam was presented to the Minnesota Historical Society by the author's daughter, Mrs. Cornelia Hallam Miller of St. Paul in 1946