She embodies the quote from Teddy Roosevelt papered along the wall of her office, called the battle room: "Credit belongs to the one who is active in the arena. ..."

"She holds herself to a very high standard," says Scott Heidepriem, a partner in Johnson, Heidepriem, Miner, Marlow, Janklow, a Sioux Falls law firm.

But behind her petite stature, she's known as a powerful litigator, with skills cultivated during a career that began when she attended college at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley, and came home to the Watertown area to practice law only to realize no one would hire her.

"She's matured into a tenacious attorney who can tear arguments to shreds and is gifted in her approach," said Donus Roberts, her high school debate coach, who helped nurture her appreciation for law. "She knows her craft, is skillful with her language and a master of research," he says.

Turbak made headlines this summer after winning what is believed to be the largest individual verdict in state history. Her client Eugene Kent was awarded $27.4 million as the result of wrongful imprisonment, lost income and punitive damages. The civil suit was filed against United of Omaha, an insurance company with which he once worked on a group health insurance policy. The case, which was decided by a federal court jury in Aberdeen, is on appeal.

"Successful trial lawyers require hitting many singles, and she hits more than anyone," says Heidepriem, who has faced Turbak in the courtroom. "She knows as much as anyone about the subject matter. You as an opponent know that going in."

Turbak knew how to read when she started school at Holy Rosary and compressed first and second grades into one year. The one-room school in Kranzburg - a prairie town of 150 - was a protected enclave of Midwestern values with about 20 students. "All the playmates were related," she says.

Shy by nature, she was intimidated by public speaking. But at home, she and her siblings were encouraged to be creative and were challenged to build logical arguments.

"I was uncomfortable socially and didn't have a lot of confidence," she said. But "I was very opinionated, especially with things that were unfair," she says, blaming her middle child status for her scrupulous social conscience.

To compensate for her shyness, she was outspoken and verbally rambunctious. His lesson: "That you couldn't be successful by being outspoken," says Roberts, who is now retired. "Speech activities helped her find a middle ground."

"College was an adventure," she says. But she grew weary of political theory and transferred to Harvard College for the excitement she craved. Turbak graduated at 20 with a degree in government, nurtured her social consciousness in the post-hippie era of the 1970s and graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, in 1981.

Watertown beckoned in 1982. There were only two law firms to work for, she says. "But no one would hire me." So she opened her own practice that same year.

Turbak was 31 when Bill Hoff of Watertown asked for her help in 1987 when his wife died from an improper blood transfusion at McKennan Hospital. He knew Nancy as a child and had heard of her good reputation.

Turbak waffled. "She thought she was too small (of a firm) and didn't think she could handle something like that. But then called right back and told me she would take it," Hoff says.

Turbak credits her husband, Patrick Culhane, for convincing her to take the challenge. The case never went to trial but settled out of court for an unnamed sum. The Argus Leader reported in August 1986 before the settlement that Turbak had drawn up a complaint asking for a total of $6.3 million.

Bob Timm, circuit court judge for the 3rd judicial Circuit Court in Watertown, says it is her courtroom style that helps the jury bond with her.

He tells this story: "A (rancher) had injured himself in a car accident, and it affected his ability to ride a horse. She brought a saddle in and put it on a pedestal and had him demonstrate all the different parts of a saddle and explain why this car accident had diminished his ability. The jury got interested in the case, and it brought out the best in her client, who was a reluctant cowboy type," Timm says.

Jim Roby, colleague and president-elect of the South Dakota Trial Lawyers association, remembers Turbak's youthful enthusiasm. "As a kid, she was very much like she is now, but she was a lot louder."

Turbak, now 49, for years eschewed traditionally female interests such as cooking and gardening on feminist grounds, but age and confidence have softened that strident view, as her tidy garden and roses attest.

No weed or spent bloom is tolerated among the peonies, daisies, peach roses, purple coneflowers and bridal wreath spirea. "I deadhead to relax," she says, kneeling on the flagstone path pulling out creeping thyme mingling with the lawn grass.

Turbak also takes time with the roses at her office. She gently pulls a bloom toward her to examine the flower, then lets it bob back and quickly checks the rest of the bush. "I trim the rose bushes to clear my head," she says. Or she smokes a pipe filled with "death by chocolate" tobacco from a bag tucked in her desk drawer. "It pacifies me."

While law has been a major part of Turbak's life, it doesn't consume her, says Cathy Piersol, a Sioux Falls lawyer and friend. "She's a student of life."

"I love my work, but I want to have a human connection on a simpler level," Turbak says, explaining her desire to learn massage and take hospice training. Family and friends are what's important these days. Her perspective irrevocably changed a year ago when she lost her oldest brother.

"She's been able to find a good balance in life," Piersol says. "This profession can be grim and grizzly. Yet she can still see the sun peeking out from the clouds."

Turbak has four children. Liam, 15, is a high school sophomore, and Seamus, 20, is a junior at South Dakota State University. Neither show as much interest in the law as they do in hunting. Two step-children, Mary 32, and Patrick, 34, live in Sioux Falls.

Married for 21 years to Patrick Culhane, who occasionally works as a private investigator for her, the two are getting a divorce but remain friends and continue their working relationship, Turbak said.

She often wears jeans paired with glittery slides and frequently rakes her hands through her short straight hair. But when she's working with a client or in the courtroom, she dons a tailored suit. Bold, autumn-colored Oedipus Redipus nail polish colors her manicured toes, something she wouldn't have done early in her career. "The longer you practice, the more you rely on accomplishments."

She has made a name for herself in law, but this time of year it's not her courtroom acumen that scares those who know her, but rather her witch's cackle and broom.

Halloween is her favorite holiday, she says, and each year she dresses as a witch and scares neighborhood trick-or-treaters who come from miles around. "I'm getting a reputation for it," she says.

The wacky witch persona is typical of Turbak's ability to laugh at herself, says Piersol. The silliness illustrates her capacity to stay connected in a typically male profession.

"A woman litigator is like a woman surgeon," Piersol says. "You're still running a little faster and jumping a little higher; you have people coming close behind you who are dependent on your reputation."

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