He is the judge in one of the largest and most public antitrust lawsuits of our age -- charged with making a decision with the potential to redefine the technological industry and the way the world uses computers -- and his experiences as an undergraduate at Dartmouth will help guide him along the way.
In an interview with The Dartmouth this week, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson '58 said the College has had a deep impact on his life and the highly successful career which finds him now making history as he presides over the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit against the Microsoft Corporation.
"I can't overestimate the importance of a broad, liberal arts education in being a competent lawyer. You need to have the background to put the legal problems you have in perspective."
Jackson knew from an early age he wanted to be a lawyer -- looking up to his attorney father and growing up in an age when the Senate and the country were engrossed in a trial not of sexual liaisons but of what defines un-American behavior in the McCarthy hearings.
"It was a feature of my teenage years and I became fascinated with the legal process," Jackson said.
With his goals cemented, he majored in Government at the College and rarely wavered from his legal ambitions -- a track which would propel him to the spotlight more than once.
Raising the Bar
Jackson presided over the drug-possession case against former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and issued the ruling forcing former Senator Bob Packwood to hand over his secret, sex-filled diaries, which ultimately led to his resignation.
However, he has perhaps received the most exposure from a series of trials involving complicated and decidedly unjuicy monopoly laws, hidden and less obvious corporate power rather than overt political might and an operating system far different from the political machines behind both Barry and Packwood.
From the highly dramatic, and frequently criticized, visual demonstration of dragging the Internet Explorer's desktop icon to the trash to show Window's ability to function without its accompanying browser to his more recent rulings dealing with chairman Bill Gates' private e-mails, the antitrust case of the decade has put Jackson's name in the press more times than he might care to see it.
"You're aware of the fact in higher profile cases that public criticism comes more quickly," Jackson said describing just one of the negatives of ruling under the nation's ever-open eyes.
"I've been preoccupied with the Microsoft case simply because of its magnitude and the publicity it's been given, but I have had other protracted cases. Not too long ago I tried a labor racketeering case which lasted for five months and a narcotics conspiracy case that went for six months, neither of which got any public attention. They were just as preoccupying."
Public or not, Jackson said the long cases pull on his attention, and his docket. "It does get in the way of other cases on your calendar ... We have to just fit them all in."
Sometimes the puzzle doesn't work perfectly, however, and Jackson said he often feels other cases deserving of his attention are neglected because of these longer and larger trials -- that's not to say there are no positives to headline grabbing trials.
"I can't say that I enjoy them, but the experience has been in the more publicly prominent cases that the quality of the lawyering has been quite good and I always enjoy presiding over a case in which the lawyers know their job."
Knowing -- and loving -- his job is something Jackson has always done.
"One of the attractive things about the law is ... you get to produce results" instead of just writing about them, Jackson said describing another reason for choosing law over journalism, an early career contender.
Jackson's love of the law is so universal he said he does not prefer a particular legal field over another, including some considered dry by most.
"I have always enjoyed an interesting case with significant issues irrespective of the field it arose from."
That appreciation has led Jackson to occasionally miss his former role of lawyer but said he enjoys "making decisions which hopefully will have constructive consequences" in his current capacity of U.S. district court judge.
Dartmouth undying
While Dartmouth's "academics were absolutely splendid," Jackson said "the happiest aspect" of his Hanover experience was his fraternity, the now disbanded Delta Upsilon fraternity.
"My fraternity was what you might call a straight-arrow fraternity," he said. "I participated in all the fraternity activities." And his Greek brothers have remained friends to this day.
Jackson said he returns to the College every few years for reunions or a football game with former classmates and usually attends a Government class. He said he believes he still has the distinctive Dartmouth spark alive inside of him.
The College "generated a good deal of affection for itself in me ... I am also delighted to see it exists in the younger alumni as much as it did in those of my era," he said. "I think one of the things for those who remember Dartmouth as an all-male institution, we find it exhilarating the amount of enthusiasm that women find for the College."
In fact, Jackson said while he never thought about the possibility of a co-educational Dartmouth while he attended the College, he supported the movement once it began and wished it had happened sooner.
"We had a long way to travel for a social life and the roads weren't as good as they are today," Jackson said.
Jackson also said what is seen by many as a recent push by the College's administration to de-emphasize the Greek life which was so important to him is "chronic" and not new.
"It's been going on since the beginning of time. I remember there was much agitation to end the fraternity system when I was there and alumni were telling me it happened when they were there."
Jackson did value the College's president at the time, however, and said he has heard some of his affable traits are seen again in current College President James Wright.
"I was there under the John Sloan Dickey administration and admired him greatly. He was very close to the students when he was there. I not only met him and talked to him on several occasions but he was very evident on campus."
Jackson's links to the College are many. His wife once worked at the Dartmouth Medical School and one of his two daughters attended the College. Sarah Jackson graduated in 1988 and was executive editor of The Dartmouth while in Hanover.
Windows bound
Jackson participated in the Navy ROTC program at the College and after graduation served in the Navy from 1958 to 1961. He was an officer of the deck and was a ship's prosecutor starting in 1959.
"I regard the three years I spent in the Navy as three of the most useful years I ever spent. It was a very significant maturing experience for me," he said. "I learned not only the mechanics of operating the ship but learned lessons in leadership that I probably wouldn't have gotten a chance to in any other occupation."
The Navy waters swept him to the banks of the Charles River where he earned his law degree at Harvard University in 1964.
From 1964 to 1982, Jackson practiced law in and around the nation's capital, including before the Supreme Court starting in 1970.
President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the U.S. District Court bench in 1982 -- and much of our technologically obsessed world now hinges on decisions made by Jackson, who will issue rulings which will be studied by antitrust scholars for years to come.
Whether Microsoft goes the way of Bob Packwood or remains one of the world's most powerful companies depends a lot on Thomas Penfield Jackson.
In light of the case's gravity, he sometimes may wonder whether it would have been easier to stick to journalism after all and simply write about the case -- and the judge -- that has so grabbed the nation's attention.
