Charles Edward Springer

A native Nevadan, Charles Edward Springer was born in Reno and graduated from Reno High School in 1945 before enlisting in the U.S. Army at seventeen, serving in Japan as a paratrooper in the Occupation Forces. After his honorable discharge he returned to the University of Nevada, graduating in 1950, and went on to Georgetown University Law School, from which he graduated in 1953. He passed both the District of Columbia and Nevada bar examinations and was sworn into both bars that same year, beginning a legal career that would span 65 years. Later in life, after his elevation to the bench, he earned a further degree through the University of Virginia and Oriel College at Oxford in 1985, a program reserved for appellate judges.

Returning to Nevada, Springer joined the firm of Drendel and Dixon, served as the sole law clerk to Federal Judge Roger D. Foley, and then formed the firm of Springer, McKissick, and Hug with two lifelong friends - Howard McKissick, later a Nevada State Legislator and Speaker of the House, and Procter Hug, Jr., later Chief Judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Together they developed and taught the Nevada Bar Review Course. Active in public life, Springer served the Democratic Party as Washoe County and State Chairman and as a National Committeeman, was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to the National Small Business Administration, and in 1962 was named the nation's Outstanding Young Democrat. That same year Governor Grant Sawyer appointed him Nevada Attorney General.

In 1969 Springer was asked to establish a juvenile court in Washoe County, which he designed and then led as its first Juvenile Master and Judge from 1970 to 1980. In 1980 he was elected to the Supreme Court of Nevada, taking his seat in 1981 and going on to two further terms unopposed, serving 18 years on the Court, including as Chief Justice. A longtime advocate for women's rights, he served on the Nevada Commission for Women and headed a Supreme Court study on gender bias in the judiciary. Remembered as a champion of the underserved, he was known for his dignity, charm, and wit throughout a distinguished career of public service.