Background
Gildea was born on October 6, 1961 and raised in Plummer, Minnesota.
Gildea was born on October 6, 1961 and raised in Plummer, Minnesota.
Georgetown University Law Center. University of Minnesota.
She served as an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court from 2006 to 2010 and as a district judge for Hennepin County in the Fourth Judicial District from 2005 to 2006. She received a Bachelor of Arts, with distinction, from the University of Minnesota Morris in 1983, and a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1986. After law school, she remained in Washington, District of Columbia and entered private practice at Arent Fox.
Gildea later returned to Minnesota where, after working briefly as a special prosecutor for the city of Minneapolis, she became an associate general counsel for the University of Minnesota.
She represented the University system for eleven years, including during the scandal involving former men"s basketball coach Clem Haskins. She served on the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission from 2001 to 2004 under Governors Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty.
Pawlenty later appointed her as an Associate Justice. Gildea"s seat on the Court was up for election in 2008.
In 2010, Governor Pawlenty appointed her the new Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, replacing Eric Magnuson.
Her term as Chief Justice began on July 1, 2010 and she was sworn in at a ceremony on July 12, 2010 in Saint Paul. Gildea lives in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis.