Janice Lindquist Gradwohl

Janice Lindquist Gradwohl

December 27, 2022

Janice Lindquist Gradwohl died peacefully at her home in Lincoln on December 27, 2022.

Jan was the first woman judge in Lancaster County, having been the first female deputy county attorney there. Upon her appointment to the bench in 1974, Jan became only the fourth woman judge in Nebraska.

In 1954 Jan received a Bachelor of Laws, now Juris Doctor, from the University of Nebraska College of Law. Jan and her husband, John Mayer Gradwohl, met as law students and were married the day after her last final exam.

Between graduation and joining the county attorney's office, Jan served as a civilian lawyer with the U.S. Air Force; Assistant to the Director of the World Tax Series, a publication branch of Harvard Law School; and a litigator with a private firm.

Jan served by Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation on the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute. She was also on the National Jury Standards Committee that prepared the American Bar Association (ABA) jury management standards. She chaired the 900-member special courts judicial section of the ABA, was a founding member of the International Association of Women Judges and served on the faculty of the National Judicial College.

During her judicial career, Jan was a member of numerous committees and task forces dedicated to judicial system improvement and equal justice. In 1991 Jan received the ABA National Flaschner Award, which recognizes a judge of a court of special jurisdiction for distinguished service in improving the quality of justice in the U.S. Other legal and civic organizations have also recognized her commitment to equal justice through awards such as the 2014 Jim Wolf Equal Justice Award from Nebraska Appleseed and the 2015 Defender of Democracy Award from Nebraskans for Civic Reform, now Civic Nebraska.

In 1990 Jan took an early retirement from the bench so she and John, a distinguished law professor, could develop interactive methods for teaching international comparative law. They implemented those programs over a nine-year period at four Chinese law schools, the Chinese Ministry of Education, and the Shanghai area courts and law colleges. Together with two Chinese lawyers, the Gradwohls wrote an English-Mandarin text on international law trial practice for use in Chinese law schools, published by a Chinese university and funded by the Asia Foundation.

Jan's husband John died in 2014. Jan was also preceded in death by her parents Emil and Marie Lindquist and beloved in-laws Bernard and Elaine Gradwohl. Jan is survived by her children and their families: Ann Gradwohl; Jill and Jeffery Schroeder, Shannon Schroeder, Joel, Anel and Max John Schroeder, and Allison and Ryan Hildreth; and John Gradwohl and Marsha Mueller, Andrea and Sam Atkinson and Andrea's children. Additionally, Jan and John maintained many close mentor-student relationships that created an extended family that spans continents.

Jan requested a private family memorial service.

Should friends desire, memorial contributions may be sent to the John and Jan Gradwohl Access to Justice Scholarship Fund at the University of Nebraska Foundation, 1010 Lincoln Mall, Suite 300, Lincoln, NE 68508; or a social service organization of your choice.