The State Bar Association of North Dakota Fall 2014 Gavel Magazine | Page 18

TOGETHER IN

love and law
For Allen and Mary Hoberg,
legal careers have brought many
opportunities

Allen Hoberg and Mary Norum met in law school at the
University of North Dakota in 1974, married between their second
and third year, and have spent the past 37 years enjoying the
variety their legal careers have brought to their lives.
Allen, a Minot native, studied history, economics, political science
and accounting, first at Minot State and then UND, earning his
bachelor’s degree in history in 1972. This was followed by two years
as a military police officer at Oakland Army Base in California.
“When I was leaving the Army, I didn’t have a specific plan about
what to do with my life,” he recalls. “My uncle, Gordon Hoberg,
was Logan County states attorney at the time. I thought a career
in law, especially criminal defense might be interesting, so while in
the military I applied for and was accepted into law school.”
Mary was a Fargo native who had earned a bachelor’s degree
from Rutgers University. “My plan was to become a college
French professor,” she recalls. When there were no jobs for French
graduates in 1974, her parent suggested she look into training for
a profession, such as law. “Because I could get into the UND Law
School that year, I enrolled, thinking I would like to help clients
settle estates,” she says.
In their early years as lawyers, their first
jobs brought them to Bismarck. Allen
worked for the North Dakota Legislative
Council and Mary in child support
enforcement and in the Supreme Court
Administrator’s Office. In 1980, they
moved to Tempe, Arizona, so Mary
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THE GAVEL

could study music for a year. Their next move was to Fayetteville,
Arkansas, where Allen studied agriculture law and earned a LLM
degree at the University of Arkansas.
Eventually, it was back to Bismarck, where Allen joined the
Attorney General’s office. They moved back to Fayetteville for
a year in 1988, where Allen was director of the new National
Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas. They
returned to Bismarck in 1989 for Allen to work in administrative
hearings, first as the the director of an administrative hearings
division in the attorney General’s office and then in a separate
agency. “I wrote the legislation establishing the North Dakota
Office of Administrative Hearings in 1991, and was named its first
director,” says Allen.
Working as an administrative law judge, he found administrative
hearings a very interesting area of law. “There was a lot of variety
to the work, dealing with many different types of issues for many
state agencies, and requiring different types of rulings, such as
recommended decisions, final decisions and procedural hearing
officer rulings.”

was to
“My plancollege
become a
French professor.
”
- Mary

He remained at the Office of Administrative Hearings
until December 2013, when he entered private practice
with Baumstark Braaten Law Partners in Bismarck.
“Now my work is nearly all agriculture law,” he says.
Mary chose to work part-time while raising their
three children. “During that time I was able to practice
law, mostly in state government, in a variety of job