Chief Justice David E. Gilbertson was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1949, the son of a Lutheran minister and a surgical nurse. When he was one-year-old, the family relocated from Milwaukee to Sisseton, South Dakota. Gilbertson noted that his childhood as a minister’s son was probably good training for becoming a justice later in life. By the time he was a high school student, Gilbertson knew that he wanted to work for himself and had decided that studying the law was a natural fit in terms of his interests and strengths. In pursuit of this goal, Gilbertson graduated from South Dakota State University in 1972 as the first in the history of the university to graduate as a triple major (History, Political Science and Geography) in four years. Afterwards, he attended the University of South Dakota Law School, graduating in 1975. After law school, Gilbertson returned to Sisseton as a prosecutor, where the jurisdiction had just changed from federal to state. Six months into the position, Gilbertson received a unique opportunity to serve as lead counsel on a murder trial. Gilbertson credits logging in a great deal of time in the Sisseton courtroom to helping him take the next step in his career and becoming a judge.