Mark McCormick, a former Iowa Supreme Court justice and well-known Des Moines attorney, has died, his family told the Business Record. He died on March 30 at age 91.

He is survived by his wife, Victoria Herring, who is also an attorney.

McCormick served the Iowa Supreme Court from 1972 to 1986, when he retired from the court to serve as a private practice attorney at the Des Moines law firm now known as Belin McCormick, where he was a shareholder.

He was also interested in politics. In 1998, he ran in the Democratic primary for governor, losing to Tom Vilsack. He also ran for mayor of Des Moines in 2003 and lost to Frank Cownie.

McCormick earned his legum baccalaureus, or LLB degree, from Georgetown University and clerked for federal judge Harvey Johnson, the chief judge of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. He returned to his hometown of Fort Dodge and joined the Art Johnson law firm and served as assistant Webster County attorney for four years.

He was appointed to the Iowa District Court in 1968, and in 1972 he was named as a justice to the Iowa Supreme Court, making him the youngest member to serve the court in the 20th century. During that time, he earned a master’s in law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

He wrote articles for the Iowa Law Review and the Drake Law Review, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Fitzgerald v. Racing Association of Central Iowa, and advocated for the retention of Iowa Supreme Court judges after they received backlash following the Varnum v. Brien case involving same-sex marriage.

He worked on state committees, including the Iowa Crime Commission and governor’s task forces on governmental ethics and Iowa’s mental health institutions, and served as independent counsel to the Iowa House Ethics Committee and co-chair of a bipartisan House committee on government ethics laws. He chaired nomination panels for the courts and taught classes at the National Judicial College and at other continuing education programs for lawyers.

He was also very energy-conscious, and was known for commuting to work on a moped.

The Business Record profiled McCormick in 2015. In the interview, McCormick spoke of some of his more prominent cases and told the story of his visit to the Great Wall of China.

“In October 2007, while on vacation, Mark McCormick fell off the Great Wall of China.

“What could have been a 35-foot fall became less eventful when McCormick managed to grab a shrub on the way down. That was handy, because his wife, Victoria Herring, fell in the same spot as she attempted to come to his aid. She landed in McCormick’s lap. Neither was hurt seriously.

“‘We had hooked up with a guide who promised us he would take us to a remote area of the wall where we wouldn’t run into a lot of other people,’ McCormick said. ‘He let us walk there, and kept his distance. We were on a portion of the wall with a clay surface, with no protective guard on the cliff side of the wall.

“‘It was about 18 inches across. I have big feet. I slipped and slid off the wall. There was enough of an angle to the wall and there was a bush growing out of the base of the wall. I grabbed the trunk of the bush and held on. Vicky was walking behind me. She got kind of flustered, and she fell. I caught her in my lap.’

“‘The guide and a young Peace Corps student pulled her out, then pulled me out.’

“It was one way to learn the differences in how nations operate their national treasures, McCormick found.

“‘I saw the difference between the National Park Service and the Great Wall,’ he said. ‘They had no protective structure [on the Great Wall]. And the guide seemed to take it all in a day’s work. He didn’t offer any help with the cuts and bruises.’”