Judge Michael Jeffery

Judge Michael I. Jeffery (ret.) served as the first Superior Court Judge in Barrow, Alaska from1982 until his retirement at age 70 in December 2014. His court’s jurisdiction included the entire North Slope Borough. He had moved to Barrow in January 1977 to establish Barrow’s Alaska Legal Services office. He had just returned from almost 5 years in North India. He became energized about the far-reaching effects of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder on the justice system after an inspirational week-long FASD conference in Barrow in 1996. He has attended numerous FASD trainings, including the 4-Digit Diagnostic Code training from the University of Washington, and most recently from the White crow Village Society in Canada. He has presented about his efforts to adapt to FASD in the courtroom in Alaska, in other states and in Vancouver, B.C. His efforts have been recognized in Alaska media and in local and statewide awards. His publications include “An Arctic Judge’s Journey with FASD,” published by the Journal of Psychiatry and Law in 2010.He serves on the Steering Committee of the Alaska FASD Partnership, on the FASD Work group of the Governor’s Commission on Disabilities and Special Education, and on the Alaska Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. He is a certified FASD 101 trainer and a Surrogate Parent for the North Slope Borough School District’s special education program. In 2016, he co-wrote with Teri Tibbett a chapter entitled “Smart Justice and FASD in Alaska: From Prevention to Sentence Mitigation” for the Springer publication Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in Adults: Ethical and Legal Perspectives. He and his wife Esther continue to live in Barrow, where Esther is the School Nurse. They have three grown children living in San Francisco and Anchorage. The family does commercial salmon set net fishing in Bristol Bay each summer. His formal education includes degrees from Stanford University and the Yale Law School, where he was on the Board of Editors of the Yale Law Journal. He is active in his faith community as an Elder and choir member, Barrow’s Rotary Club, and the Barrow Eskimo Dance Group.