Nels Ackerson Biographical Summary
Nels’ Youth on an Indiana Farm and at Purdue
Nels Ackerson grew up on a small family farm near Eagletown. His grandparents came to America as immigrants. His grandfather was a farm hand and his grandmother a maid. They saved enough money to buy the first part of the family farm in Indiana in 1905. Nels’ father was an Indiana dairy farmer and county councilman and his mother was a teacher and a homemaker. Nels’ grandparents and parents farmed the land through their lifetimes, and Nels and his sister still own and manage that farm today.
Nels graduated from Westfield High School and Purdue University. As a young man, he was active in the Eagletown Methodist Church, 4-H, and other youth organizations, and he was elected Indiana State President and then National President of the FFA. He also served as youth chairman of the National Safety Congress and youth co-chairman of the American Institute of Cooperation. At Purdue Nels was a national debate champion in the AFEA debate competition, sang in Purdue’s Varsity Glee Club, was elected president of FarmHouse Fraternity and was elected Student Body President. He received the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics in 1967, was named the outstanding graduate in the School of Agriculture and received the G.A. Ross Award as the outstanding male graduate of Purdue.
Nels’ Law School and Early Career in Indiana
After Purdue, Nels was admitted to Harvard University where he received a full scholarship and earned a masters degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a Juris Doctor degree with honors from the Harvard Law School. He was selected to serve as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. During his college and law school years he also established a student exchange program with the State of Michoacan, Mexico, and was an advisor on employment policy to the Government of Colombia, under a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Nels came back home to Indiana after law school. He was admitted to the Indiana State bar, and spent several years practicing law in Indianapolis and in state and federal courts throughout Indiana, while helping to manage the Ackerson family farm. Nels also served for more than two years in Washington, DC as chief counsel of the United States Senate’s Subcommittee on the Constitution under Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. He was instrumental in the passage of several pieces of legislation to benefit the economy, agricultural policy, energy policy, civil rights, education and intellectual property.
Early Legislative Successes as a Member of the U.S. Senate Staff
Among his legislative accomplishments during his two years on the U.S. Senate staff were his significant roles in three landmark pieces of legislation. Nels proposed, drafted and organized support for one of the first federal laws to encourage the development of alternative fuels from biomass by permitting farmers to plant set-aside acres in fuel crops. He also was instrumental in proposing, drafting, holding hearings and organizing support for significant civil rights legislation to permit the U.S. Department of Justice to defend the constitutional rights of American citizens whose rights were not being protected or were even being abused by state authorities. The legislation passed after getting the bipartisan support of Sen. Birch Bayh and Senator Orin Hatch. Nels also was instrumental in proposing, drafting, holding hearings, and organizing support for legislation to permit universities, non-profit organizations and small businesses to commercialize inventions that resulted from research funded in part by federal money. The law, which is well known by the names of its primary sponsors as the Bayh-Dole Law, has resulted in making thousands of valuable new products available for the American economy and has brought tens of millions of dollars of needed revenue to Purdue University, Indiana University and other colleges and universities across the nation.
In 1980, Nels received the Democratic Party’s nomination for Indiana’s 5th congressional district, where he actively campaigned on behalf of Indiana’s citizens for alternative fuels, economic growth, and ethics in government.
Nels Ackerson: A Hoosier International Lawyer
In 1982, shortly after the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Nels agreed to accept a pioneering assignment to open the first American law office in Egypt. He moved to Egypt where he lived 3 years, managing a law practice as a partner of the law firm of Sidley & Austin, where he represented American companies, countries allied with the United States, multinational organizations, and individuals in matters that eventually took him to numerous countries in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Nels was a founder and was elected president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt which came to be one of the most active business organizations in the Middle East, focused on opening markets and advancing private enterprise.
Nels’ international legal and economic development work has led him to professional activities in sixteen countries, in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and North and South America.
Nels’ Career Representing the “Little Guys” in David v. Goliath Litigation
In 1991, Nels founded his own firm, The Ackerson Group, now named Ackerson Kauffman Fex. He has built a nationwide reputation representing individuals, farmers, ranchers, homeowners and small businesses in property rights, eminent domain and governmental takings cases. While more of his cases have been in Indiana courts than in any other state, his litigation has covered all 48 contiguous states. Nels has succeeded in class actions that have made tens of millions of dollars in compensation available to thousands of Hoosier farmers, homeowners, small businesses and other property owners for property taken from them without their consent and without compensation by governments and by huge railroad and telecommunications companies.
A champion of individual rights and economic opportunity, Nels has tried cases and argued appeals in federal and state courts across the United States and before international tribunals, including landmark cases in federal takings law, class action law, real estate law, farm credit law and federal regulatory law. Nels is often involved in legislation and has written laws to encourage ethanol fuels, protect university and small business patent rights, and protect property rights. He has been invited to testify on several occasions before congressional and state legislature committees.
Nels Has Had A Lifetime of Public Service
Nels has never left his Indiana roots. Long a member of the Indiana Farm Bureau, Nels and his sister still manage the Ackerson family farm in Westfield, Indiana, where they grew up. He remains close to his high school friends at Westfield and his many Purdue friends.
He has been a member of the Indiana Bar Association for more than 30 years, and he has represented clients across Indiana, including every county in the 4th Congressional District, even as he has attended to matters across the country and sometimes around the world. Nels is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, and he is a member of the International Society of Barristers. He has testified on many occasions before Congressional committees and state legislature panels, and he has spoken widely across the country.
A lifelong advocate for education, Nels served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for Purdue’s School of Liberal Arts (1997-2001), participated as an Old Master (2001), and was honored as a School of Agriculture Distinguished Alumnus (2002). In 2006, Nels received an Honorary Doctorate from Purdue.
Nels and his wife Sharon have been married for 25 years. Sharon is a native of South Bend, Indiana. Her father was a machinist and her mother was a Salvation Army officer. Sharon graduated from Franklin College and lived for several years in Johnson County. Before devoting full time to family matters in recent years, Sharon was the business manager of their law firm. Nels and Sharon live in Zionsville, just a few miles from the family farm that Nels still owns and manages. They have four grown children and a granddaughter who lights up Papaw’s eyes.
