Moore, Costello & Hart, P.L.L.P., founded in territorial Minnesota in 1855, is the oldest continuing law firm in the State of Minnesota. During our impressive history, a distinguished alumni of attorneys have made substantial contributions to industry and government in Minnesota and the United States. Several became judges in the municipal, district and supreme courts of the State of Minnesota. One former partner, Warren E. Burger, served as the Chief Justice of the United States. Moore, Costello & Hart's commitment to the development of promising young people is exemplified within the firm by its mentor system, and outside the firm through its members' work as law instructors and with organizations such as the Boy Scouts and the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. 

George L. Otis
It was in 1855—three years before Minnesota achieved statehood and five years before the outbreak of the Civil War—that George L. Otis set up his practice in his adopted city of St. Paul.  In St. Paul, George Otis found a city bursting with opportunity for lawyers, especially those with an entrepreneurial bent. Though less than a decade old, the judicial system was already overtaxed when Otis arrived, as new laws were passed to control everything from petty theft to minor traffic violations (anyone engaged in "immoderately riding or driving" a horse over six miles an hour was to be fined $100 or sentenced to a jail term of up to three months).  The district court in St. Paul handled some 100 cases a month, ninety of them civil disputes.  Imprisonment for debt had been abolished by the territorial governor in 1855, but that bill did not ease the burden of shattered dreams.  In the free-wheeling frontier territories, fortunes were lost as easily as they were made.

Minnesota case law shows that George Otis' first appellate matter was in 1857, before the Supreme Court of the Territory of Minnesota.  In Minnesota & North Western R. Co. v. Rice, 1 Minn. 358 (1857), George successfully appealed a district court decision against his clients, the Minnesota and North Western Rail Road Company, who had been sued for trespassing on Edmund Rice's land in Dakota County. 

Charles Otis
George's brother Charles was 25 years old when he arrived in St. Paul in 1871.  He resigned his position as the superintendent of La Porte, Indiana, public schools to join his brother's law practice; in 1873 Charles passed the Minnesota bar.

By the 1880s the railroads were transforming St. Paul into the transportation hub of the Northwest.  Buoyed by that industry and the continuing real estate boom, the population of St. Paul nearly tripled between 1880 and 1888, to 111,397—and the Otis law firm grew apace.  The brothers handled hundreds of property sales and title examinations, laying the foundation—both in terms of expertise and clients—for Moore, Costello & Hart's present strength in real estate law.

After George's death, Charles continued George's habit of good citizenship.  Charles was elected to the board of education and the St. Paul City Council, where he helped bring to fruition George's dream of a public waterworks.  Charles also served as director of the St. Paul Public Library, and was instrumental in capturing the Minnesota State Fair for St. Paul.  Through Charles' efforts, St. Paul prevailed over Minneapolis in bringing the fair to the area that used to house Ramsey County's 200-acre Poor Farm at Como and Snelling Avenues.  In August 1899, Charles accepted an appointment as a Ramsey County district court judge.

James C. Otis, Sr.
Charles' successor in the Otis firm was his son, James C. Otis, Sr.  James attended Central High School and Barnard School (later the St. Paul Academy), later enrolling at Cornell University.  James discovered his talent for legal work in 1901, while studying at the one-year-old St. Paul College of Law (the college became the William Mitchell College of Law in 1956).  His father invited James into the family firm in 1903.  Willis Clark Otis, Charles's nephew, jointed the firm the same year and stayed until the start of World War I.

Otis & Otis, as the firm was now called, enjoyed a wide and varied practice, and James Otis, Sr., seems to have ranged easily through a great number of political and community activities as well.  From 1907 to 1912 James was a member of the St. Paul City Council. Although a Democrat, he was elected from the Eleventh Ward, a strongly Republican district.  One of his most effective supporters was Pierce Butler, who became the first Minnesotan appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  During the decades between world wars, James served on the St. Paul Charter Commission and was its chairman for many years.

Always concerned about health issues and the poor, James served as president of the Ramsey County Public Health Association and the Children's Preventorium, a facility for children who had been exposed to tuberculosis, and as a member of the Advisory Board of Children's Service and the Girl Scouts of America.  He was a trustee of Wilder Charities, a director of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, and during World War II chairman of the Selective Service Appeal Board for the Ramsey County district. James served on the Ramsey County Bar Association's Executive Council for many years, holding the office of secretary, then vice president, and finally president.  He was also vice president and later president of the Minnesota Bar Association, and a member of the American Bar Association's House of Delegates. 

Kenneth Gray Brill
Kenneth Gray Brill's long and distinguished legal career was divided equally between private practice and the bench.  Like so many of his colleagues at the firm that is now called Moore, Costello & Hart, Brill respected tradition and chose to follow in his father's footsteps. Kenneth graduated from Central High School in 1903, entering the St. Paul College of Law after two years at the University of Minnesota.  After working some time as a law clerk and at the city attorney's office handling damage claims against St. Paul, he joined the Otis firm in 1913.  The firm's name then changed to Otis & Brill.

Strongly committed to helping young people, in part because of his father's tenure as a juvenile court judge, Brill helped initiate changes in the county's detention centers and in their handling of young offenders.  Believing that strong role models were critical to rehabilitation efforts, he sought out capable probation officers and Boys Farm managers.  He was a delegate to Governor Luther Youngdahl's Youth Conservation Commission and an honorary member of the St. Paul Area Boy Scouts. Other interests included the bar associations, education and history.  Brill was president of the Minnesota Society, Sons of the American Revolution, and for six years served as president of the Minnesota Historical Society.  In 1949 he helped organize the territorial centennial celebration - and was honored as one of the 100 most distinguished Minnesotans living in the centennial year.

Alf E. Boyesen
Alf E. Boyesen was born into Norwegian aristocracy in 1857.  In Fargo, a prominent lawyer persuaded Alf to stay a while and study law.  Boyesen easily passed the North Dakota bar and opened a practice.  When James J. Hill began pushing his Great Northern rails toward Minot, he hired Boyesen to represent one of his many ventures, a wholesale coal business called Northwestern Fuel.  Impressed with his handling of the case, Hill and his partner urged Boyesen to move to St. Paul.  They promised more legal work and kept their word.  In 1918 the Otis firm had a new partner and name: Boyesen, Otis & Brill.

Roland J. Faricy
Roland J. Faricy was born in 1898.  He vowed to get himself educated and off the farm, and graduated as his high school class valedictorian.  Roland became a school teacher at age sixteen and attended classes at the Mankato State Normal School.  After a brief army hitch, he taught at St. Thomas Academy in St. Paul, then entered the St. Paul College of Law working part-time as a law clerk for Boyesen, Brill & Otis.  He found the work vastly stimulating and accepted an invitation to join the firm upon his graduation from law school.

Faricy donated a good deal of time to community affairs and to the legal community, teaching at the St. Paul College of Law and serving as president of the Ramsey County Bar Association in 1946.  He was the president of the St. Paul Junior Chamber of Commerce, the St. Paul Association of Commerce, the St. Paul Club, and the St. Paul Athletic Club.  He co-chaired the 1960 Charter Amendment Committee and participated in the activities of the St. Paul Metropolitan Improvement Committee, the International Institute, the Town and Country Club, and the Knights of Columbus.  Especially gratifying was his appointment to the prestigious Judicial Review Committee of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a small group of lawyers selected by President Kennedy to study federal administrative procedures.

One year before Roland Faricy's death in 1962, he had stood before the Minnesota Supreme Court to propose that another son, Roland Faricy, Jr., be admitted to the bar. Young Roland subsequently worked for his father's firm, and at age thirty-three became one of the youngest judges ever appointed to the municipal court.  Judge James C. Otis, Jr., who had taken the very same route to the bench, administered the oath.

Warren E. Burger
Warren E. Burger, who administered the oath of office to four presidents of the United States, was born on Constitution Day, September 17, 1907.  He grew up on a farm near Stacy, Minnesota.  He spent twenty-two years in legal partnership with two of his former law teachers, James C. Otis, Sr., and Roland J. Faricy, Sr.

Burger never forgot his Midwestern roots.  Even after his retirement, the former Chief Justice of the United States still liked to return to his boyhood neighborhood in East St. Paul and walk the same seven-mile route he'd covered twice a day as a youth, delivering the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the morning and the Dispatch in the afternoon. 

After high school Burger worked for an insurance company.  He stayed seven years, eventually rising to the rank of assistant cashier.  One of his high school teachers, Edna Moore, who had not forgotten her prize pupil, entered Burger's application for a scholarship to Princeton University.  He was accepted, but family responsibilities forced him to decline.  With three younger children still at home, the Burger family needed Warren's help. (He has since been given Princeton's coveted James Madison Award.)

Determined to pursue a legal career, Burger enrolled in night classes at the University of Minnesota and two years later entered the St. Paul College of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 1931 and receiving the Phi Beta Gamma gold scholarship key.  He took the Minnesota Bar Examination during a heat wave so intense that several applicants fainted halfway through.  Burger survived the ordeal, passing the test and accepting a teaching job at his alma mater.  He continued to teach for the next twelve years, even after accepting a position with Boyesen, Otis, Brill & Faricy.  In less than three years, with the retirement of Boyesen and the departure of Brill for the district bench, the firm's name was changed to Otis, Faricy & Burger. 

Burger adopted the firm's habit of combining legal practice with community service.  He was president of the St. Paul Junior Chamber of Commerce and served on the board of directors of the St. Paul Association of Commerce and as an officer of the Ramsey County Bar Association.

President Eisenhower appointed Burger to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington in 1956.  At that time most of the judges on the circuit court were liberal activists who had been appointed by President Roosevelt and President Truman.  Burger's relatively conservative opinions probably endeared him to Republicans such as Richard Nixon, the man who named him Chief Justice of the United States in 1969.

James C. Otis, Jr.
James C. Otis, Jr. inherited his father's passion for the law, but he had very different aspirations and spent much of his career in the highly visible, often tumultuous, arena of the courtroom. After his graduation from Yale University, Otis attended the University of Minnesota Law School, joining his father's firm, Otis, Faricy & Burger, in 1937.  He described his early responsibilities as those of "a glorified law clerk," mainly examining real estate titles.  Many of the earliest entries were scrawled in his grandfather George's hand.

During World War II, Otis served with the Corps of Engineers (a physical disability forced the draft board to reject him) and returned to the firm in 1944.  He inherited his father's allegiance to the Republican party, and the death of Judge John Finehout opened up a seat on the Ramsey County municipal court bench.  Republican Governor Luther Youngdahl appointed him to serve out the remainder of the term.

Otis retired from the bench in 1982, but remained active in public affairs, serving on the Commission for the Bicentennial of the Constitution, presiding over a constitutional convention sponsored by the Minnesota Bar Association, co-chairing the Judicial Center Public Education Commission, and refereeing lawyer-disciplinary proceedings and two election contests.  He was also a trustee of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Hamline University, and the Minnesota Bar Foundation and a member of the American Judicature Society, the Institute Judicial Administration, and the Nature Conservancy.

Richard A. Moore
Even as a young boy, Richard A. Moore dreamed of becoming a lawyer.  Class valedictorian at St. Paul's Central High School in 1932, he went on to graduate magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  He enrolled at the University's law school and three years later the name Richard A. Moore again appeared at the top of the graduating class.  He was also elected to the prestigious Order of the Coif.

As president and then chairman of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, he found himself entangled in disputes raging at St. Paul/Ramsey Hospital over health care priorities in an age of soaring costs.  Were the hospitals training too many specialists?  Were they acquiring too much technology?  And so on.  As chairman of the Advisory Committee for Medical Education Programs at St. Paul/Ramsey, Moore (also representing the Chamber) was given the task of serving as a catalyst to help focus the discussions.  He went on to serve as vice president of the St. Paul/Ramsey Medical Center Commission from 1973 to 1984.

Moore's keen interest in foundation work began in the early 1950s, when he and Warren Burger were named trustees of the John F. and Myrtle V. Briggs Charitable Trust.  A portion of the Briggs estate was left to the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, and Moore, in 1980, became a member of the City of St. Paul Citizens Task Force for the Library.  He served on numerous foundation boards, including the St. Paul Ramsey Hospital Education and Research Foundation, the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, the J. Paper Foundation, the L. and A.F. Paper Foundation, the James Daniel Humphrey Foundation, the Minnesota Foundation, and the HealthEast Foundation.

He became president of the St. Paul Foundation at a critical time in its history.  Created in 1939 by a committee appointed by Roland Faricy, then president of the Chamber of Commerce, the foundation's relatively few resources were managed by a single part-time employee.  In the 1970s it fell heir to several major estates, including those of Ralph Kriesel and Harold Bend.  These bequests increased assets by some $40 million.  Appointed president in 1971, Moore presided over the foundation's nine-year transformation from a small grants-making organization to a powerful force in the nonprofit world.

Somehow Moore found time for other organizations, among them the St. Paul YWCA (he served on the advisory committee), the Family Service of St. Paul and Capital Community Services, Inc. (he was president of both), the Greater St. Paul United Fund and Council, the St. Paul Metropolitan Improvement Commission, the St. Paul Urban Coalition, the Community Planning Organization, the Better Business Bureau of St. Paul, and the St. Paul Winter Carnival Association.

Largely in recognition of Moore's prodigious contribution to community affairs, the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce named him a Great Living St. Paulite in 1985.  The practice of law remained his first love, however.  He taught at the William Mitchell College of Law and, from 1968 to 1986, served as a trustee, and helped the college acquire its present campus on Summit Avenue.  When his directorship ended, the college awarded him a doctor of laws degree honoris causa.

Harry G. Costello
Harry G. Costello grew up in the depths of the Depression.  Faces of women and children standing in soup lines and jobless workers begging for work - these images from childhood drove him to make something of himself, to excel and thus to offer some protection to his family from the same dismal fate.

Costello graduated cum laude and first in his class from the St. Paul College of Law in 1940 and set up a practice, sharing office space and doing occasional work for three associates.  It was a brief venture, snuffed out by war.  Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve in 1936, Costello was ordered to active duty with the Intelligence Division of the War Department's General Staff in Washington.  From April 1943 to October 1945, he served as commanding officer of counter intelligence units during campaigns in Europe, North Africa, and Sicily.  The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre (avec Etoile de Vermeil) and the United States the Legion of Merit Medal, citing his meritorious service in Italy and France.  Commander of a counter-intelligence corps detachment during the Anzio beachhead operation and the advance up the Rhone Valley, he was commended for capturing "numerous enemy espionage and sabotage agents."  His European-Near East Theatre Ribbon carried six battle participation awards.

Costello developed a particular expertise in real estate, corporate, and construction law.  His assistance in reorganizing and forming new construction companies for many of his old friends after the war resulted in long-term client relationships.  He was instrumental in winning for one of those clients, Otto B. Ashbach & Sons, Inc., a major case settlement against the State of Minnesota, which established an important liability precedent.  It was the first decision in Minnesota allowing the contractor to collect interest from the State in cases of its type.

Costello served as a member of the St. Paul Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Children's Service, Inc., and many other organizations.  He taught at Macalester College for five years and for two years for the Intelligence Department of the Minnesota Reserve Corps School.

B. Warren Hart
B. Warren Hart and his twin brother, B. Clarence, in more than one sense lived a double life.  Born in Iowa in 1923 and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, they served in the same unit in World War II (per their mother's request, granted personally by President Roosevelt).  Each earned a law degree from Harvard University, and together the brothers moved to St. Paul to work as law clerks for Minnesota Supreme Court justices.

Warren Hart joined Faricy, Burger, Moore & Costello in 1951.  Warren Burger became his mentor.  Hart focused his career on construction law, helping to build a national reputation for his firm.  The industry had been slowed by the Depression and virtually halted by the war.  Pent-up demand for housing, new highways, and commercial buildings exploded in the fifties, and Moore, Costello & Hart developed an impressive construction law department.

A complex but rewarding field, often involving multiple parties and vendors, conflicts of precedent and conflicts of interest, construction litigation requires formidable technical expertise, research and analytical skills, and a commanding presence in the courtroom.  Warren Hart became a highly respected appellate lawyer and, in 1962, a senior partner in the firm now known as Moore, Costello & Hart.

On top of this heavy load of legal service, Hart piled public service work for the United Way, the Girl Scouts, and the Indianhead Council of the Boy Scouts.  He served on the St. Paul Urban Coalition's task force to develop a plan for increased minority employment in the construction industry.  Long interested in politics, he helped manage Elmer L. Andersen's successful gubernatorial campaign in 1960.  Later that same decade he served on the Mayor's Committee on Drug Abuse.  Hart was also a member of the board of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and he served as president of the St. Paul Athletic Club. 

Warren Hart was one of the Jaycees' most active members, and also served a term as president.  In 1956, the Jaycees named Warren and Clarence jointly as the outstanding young men of St. Paul, the only time the honor has been doubly bestowed.  Sadly, Warren did not live to see the Jaycees' most coveted award renamed after him in 1987, for he died in 1981 at the age of fifty-eight.