A former chief judge of Minnesota’s ten-county Seventh Judicial District, Judge Boland served as a trial judge in St. Cloud, for more than 23 years during which he was the founder and the first presiding judge of Greater Minnesota’s first Drug Court.
He has wide experience in Minnesota government, having served at the city, county and state level, and he has twice served in international judicial posts. Most recently, from December 2008 until the summer of 2009, he served as the senior judicial advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development Afghanistan Rule of Law project in Kabul, Afghanistan. In 2003, he was the first American judge seconded to the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina where he served for a year as an international judge in Sarajevo.
- Qualified neutral pursuant to Rule 114 of the Minnesota General Rules of Practice and has completed Supreme Court approved programs in both civil and family mediation
- Twice-elected chief judge of the Seventh Judicial District and twice-elected assistant chief judge, serving a total of eight years on Minnesota’s Conference of Chief Judges
- Minnesota Judicial College and continuing legal education faculty member from 1987 to 2006
- Former St. Cloud City Attorney, assistant city attorney and private practice lawyer in St. Cloud
- Fifteen-year adjunct professor at St. Cloud State University, teaching in both the Criminal Justice and Mass Communications Departments
- Author of numerous articles published in legal journals and periodicals on legal and judicial professionalism and international legal development
- Served as a law clerk to the Minnesota Supreme Court and as assistant chief clerk to the Minnesota House of Representatives
- Former criminal and family court probation officer.
