Judge Steven B. Hanke, a Man for the Community

by Prateek Viswanathan*

On the bright and clear morning of Oct. 19, 2023, Governor Tim Walz appointed Steven B. Hanke as the lone District Court Judge for Minnesota’s Sixth Judicial District. When he assumes his post, he will sit both in Lake County and Cook County and continue his life-long service to the community.

After graduating summa cum laude from the University of North Dakota in 2003 with degrees in International Studies, Spanish, and Airport Management, he earned his law degree from the University of Minnesota by 2006. There, he volunteered extensively, at first by advocating and translating for Spanish-speaking newcomers and tutoring non-English speaking students. He then followed that by volunteering at the Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid to assist people with housing and government benefits issues, and then at the Minnesota Disability Law Center. 

By 2009, he became a City Attorney for the City of Duluth, where he prosecuted criminal charges, served on treatment courts, represented employers while negotiating collective bargaining agreements, litigated civil cases, and established the city’s affirmative action program. And even here, he continued volunteering with numerous organizations, including several bar associations and the Duluth Area Family YMCA Board of Trustees and Downtown Council. Most recently, he coordinated diverse CLEs in Duluth, and taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin.

In his words:

Lawyers and judges are leaders in the community. You have to be actively involved, you have to give back, and you have to understand people. If you’re not involved in the community, you start losing touch with what’s really going on and that can be really dangerous in our profession.

Take his time with the Damiano Center, which serves the Duluth community through emergency meals, children’s programming, transitional housing, free business clothing, and other forms of assistance for those in need. Every week, Judge Hanke spends hours helping with the Center’s clothing programs, by sorting clothes from donors or helping clients find clothes for their own needs. 

And in his practice, Judge Hanke leads restorative justice efforts with a passion. As a prosecutor, he worked in treatment courts, which are open to people with substance-abuse-related driving offenses.  Instead of prison, offenders from all walks of life spend five years in highly supervised probation, as well as counseling. medical appointments, and social activities to integrate them in the community. These courts, expensive as they are, reduce recidivism for most offenders. “In some ways,” Judge Hanke remarks, “prison’s an easier place than what these people are doing.” No surprise, then, that Judge Hanke will continue these efforts in the Shore Substance Use Recovery Court, serving both Lake County and Cook County. 

It hasn’t always been easy; Judge Hanke’s hearing declined throughout his time in law school and his practice, and now he uses hearing aids.

As he explains, hearing loss comes with its own challenges. Because some pitches are harder to hear than others, some voices become harder to hear than others: a problem that rears its head in his negotiations with other parties. Judge Hanke, for example, had trouble distinguishing voices when people spoke all at once, especially in remote settings. 

The same is true in litigation. Although most formal courtrooms have access to stenographers and microphones for these circumstances, Judge Hanke explains that informal settings such as treatment courts would challenge him. Sometimes he could not see the defendants to read their lips, or sometimes he could not make out multiple voices at once.

But he notes that other districts are introducing new Bluetooth and readback technologies to work with hearing aids. These solutions are not perfect, due to technological difficulties, typos, or general unavailability, but they can help.  Hearing loss is a challenge, he states, but is not insurmountable.    

When asked for advice for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students in law school, Judge Hanke hopes they will be more assertive in class: “There’s nothing wrong with asking others to speak more clearly. Part of being an attorney is being able to explain when you don’t know or understand something.”

And when asked about his hopes for his tenure, Judge Hanke points to principles of fairness, justice, and humility. It is important to him to give each case and person his undivided attention, and to develop creative ways to resolve issues. In part, he plans to adopt technology for remote hearings.  The
Sixth Judicial District is the largest by geographical area, and his two courthouses are 85 miles apart. There is little public transportation across his far-flung district, and in his view the courtroom is the only way many people can get the support they need. 

It remains to be seen what challenges will face his district and court, but it is clear Judge Hanke will continue serving it faithfully.

A man for the community, indeed!

*Prateek Viswanathan practices intellectual property litigation at Robins Kaplan in Minneapolis, MN and is active in the Minnesota Disability Bar Association.  He most recently clerked for the Honorable C.J. Williams in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. Earlier, he graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law and received a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech. He has worn hearing aids since childhood.