Michael Jeffery served as the first full-time Alaska Superior Court judge in Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, from 1982 until his retirement in 2014. A California native, Judge Jeffery received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1966 and his law degree from Yale Law School in 1969. After spending five years in India, much of it in an ashram under the tutelage of a guru, he moved to Barrow, where he has lived since 1977. He organized the first Alaska Legal Services Corporation office there and served as its supervising attorney until his appointment to the bench. The special interest he developed in understanding fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and dealing with FASD issues in the justice system that informed his legal career remains a focus of his continuing public service on state and national governmental and nonprofit committees, councils, and boards. He is active in Rotary, a drummer in an Eskimo dance group, and in summer, he fishes a commercial set net site in Bristol Bay with his family. He and his wife Esther, who met singing in their church choir, have three adult children and two grandchildren.
2022 Quyaana performance of the dance group - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qkq2OgaJF0
Slides - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ffhzzmjn75ga6ior26gif/JusticeandCommunityUtqiagvik.pdf?rlkey=t9wdixbh09d15uhlvexhh8vua&dl=0