“I didn’t really intend to go to law school. I knew I was going to continue my education, but I didn’t know if it was going to be in marketing — which was my undergraduate major — or not. My best friend said he was going to go to law school, and I jokingly said, ‘I’ll do that too!’” What began as a joke and three dollars borrowed from the friend for the LSAT fee, ultimately turned into a vocation lasting 50 years. Now, as one of the recipients of the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award, Mark A. Reinhardt ’71 reflected on his passion for the law, the career he has built fighting for the little guy, and the role Catholic Law played in getting him there.

Despite being a self-described “ok student” in high school, Reinhardt found substantial success in college. He was captain of his fencing team, president of his fraternity and the economics honor society, named American Marketing Association Student of the Year, and received numerous scholarships. Soon, he began thinking about his future. After successfully taking the LSAT and earning a number of law school scholarships, Reinhardt decided to attend law school but wanted to find the right fit for him. “I wouldn’t have gone anyplace without a scholarship because my family was not a family of means at all. Luckily, I was given the opportunity by a few different schools, and I picked Catholic.”

Going to school in Washington, D.C., was really a big draw for Reinhardt. He had once been interested in international business and figured that international law would satiate his thirst for travel. It was also a very politically charged time to be in the city. In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated, the U.S. was involved in an unpopular war, and protests were numerous. When Reinhardt arrived in D.C., he had narrowed his choices down to Georgetown and Catholic Law. “When I walked into Catholic University, which was the second school I visited, I heard, ‘Mr. Reinhardt! Mr. Reinhardt!’ And Dean Miller bounded out of his office and came up to me, ‘I’m so glad to meet you. Come on, I want to show you where you’re going to live next year.’ He took me over to the dormitory where they put up law students and it was exciting. He was so full of life and made it sound like law school was going to be a great time. I thought, ‘I think I would rather go to Catholic.’”

During his time at Catholic Law, Reinhardt learned how to think legally. The small class sizes and close relationships with both peers and faculty led to rich, robust conversation. “Most of the lawyers and law students I knew [from the early part of my career] hated law school. Hated it. It was one of the worst experiences they had, but I loved it. I think law school was a great experience. I don’t know if that was true elsewhere, but it certainly was at Catholic.”

By the time May of 1971 rolled around, Reinhardt had given up on the idea of international law. Instead, he began to see the law as a powerful tool, one he described as “a means to effect dramatic change.” Throughout law school, Reinhardt and his classmates had participated in and organized several protests against the war — an experience that profoundly impacted Reinhardt. He explained, “I began to get imbued with a feeling that there had to be people sticking up for the little guy against the people with all the power. I decided I wanted to go into law that would help level the playing field.” Upon graduating, Reinhardt was one of 20 young lawyers to receive the Reginald Herber Smith Fellowship — a public interest fellowship given through the Office of Economic Opportunity — and was assigned to a position at Legal Aid in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Before he’d even officially passed the Minnesota bar, Reinhardt found himself starting a case, the first consumer class-action lawsuit in the state — Rathbun v. WT Grant, which ended a widespread usurious scheme aimed at people of meager means. After two years working on the civil side of Legal Aid, Reinhardt became a public defender, while also working as an adjunct professor of Law part-time. During this time, he successfully argued to the Minnesota Supreme Court the case of State v. L. B. McKinnley which banned the police practice of “random” stops of drivers with no articulable reason for the stop. He also was successful in the case of State v. Florence, which changed pre-trial practice in all Minnesota criminal cases by providing defendants with new evidentiary rights. He also argued the case that effectively ended the practice in St. Paul of only arresting the woman, never the man, in prostitution cases. A few years later, he returned to civil law, focusing his efforts on RICO and Antitrust law specifically. He briefed and argued and won a unanimous decision in the U. S. Supreme Court case Dahl v. Northwestern Bell, a major RICO decision. To this day he continues to help run large Antitrust class actions throughout the country. Handling numerous major criminal and civil cases throughout his career has allowed Reinhardt to view the legal profession from a unique perspective and has made him acutely aware of both the challenges and rewards of the profession. “The biggest challenge has been the weight of responsibility of these cases. I didn’t want to lose for the people I represented. I wanted to win, and I would work tirelessly to do that.” However, the stress of responsibility has been offset by the rewards of using the legal tools available to him (like class actions) to help protect those who can’t fight back. “The most rewarding part has been being able to use the law to help the little guy. To at least make the playing field level, so that they have a fighting chance. It just gives me great pleasure.”

Over his 50 years fighting for the underdog, Reinhardt has also come to understand the importance of finding balance and taking time for oneself. “I started very early in my career demanding that I get vacation. I would go away for a week or two weeks at a time, a couple of times a year.” Whether it was canoeing across northern Minnesota in the Boundary Waters, or sitting at a high rollers table in Las Vegas, Reinhardt realized that if he could get away and do something totally different, it would help him do a better job when he was working. Even today, Reinhardt remains committed to taking time off with his family, no matter what he has coming up. In the past few years, they have driven 1,200 miles through Australia, spent weeks in Cambodia and Laos, visited Malta and Portugal, and circled Iceland by car. “There will always be another client coming in. You have to allocate time for yourself.”

Grateful for the career that he has built, Reinhardt concluded, “My entire legal career, I have felt that Catholic University gave me an opportunity that I might not ever have had if I went to any other school. I don’t know that I would have gained the understanding of how law can be a tool for change. I don’t know that I would have formed the desire to help the little guy and try to even the playing field to make it fair for everyone. That was pretty much the foundation for everything that I did. I think it is very important that a school like Catholic exists.”