10 a.m. - FARGO - The 2006 Yale Law School class has a North Dakota Caucus made up of four eastern North Dakota men, something state Bar Association officials consider remarkable.

Charlie Korsmo, Joe Pull, Dakota Rudesill, Joe Pull and Tom Sylvester were to receive Juris Doctor degrees Monday in New Haven, Conn., along with other members of the 198-member 2006 Yale Law School class.

In the Yale class of 2006, Fargo-area natives outnumber students from Chicago and equal the combined number of San Francisco and Los Angeles residents.

"I've never heard of such a remarkable thing," said Bill Neumann, executive director of the State Bar Association of North Dakota. "We do have here in the state a sprinkling of graduates of the leading law schools. But four in one class is highly unusual."

Figures from state Board of Law Examiners, show seven of the 1,829 lawyers currently licensed in North Dakota went to Yale.

Rudesill said he thought he was the only North Dakotan in his class, but on the first day of school, he decided to scan the booklet introducing new arrivals, just in case. He counted three others.

"I couldn't believe it," Rudesill said.

He called the others, and the North Dakota Caucus was formed.

The four took different routes to New Haven. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., recruited Rudesill, a 34-year-old Fargo South High grad, during Rudesill's unsuccessful campaign for the state Legislature, fresh out of Minnesota's St. Olaf College. Conrad credits Rudesill, his defense and foreign policy adviser for almost nine years, as a key player in maintaining the state's Air Force bases during rounds of closures.

The resume of Korsmo, 27, a Fargo native, includes child-actor roles opposite Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Warren Beatty and Jessica Lange, a 4.0 GPA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and stints with the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. government's Missile Defense Team.

Pull, 25, a graduate of Richland High School in Colfax and the University of Kansas, penned more than a dozen Forum letters in high school with titles such as, "Religious right made up of sincere, caring people." More recently, he signed an open letter from Yale Law students in support of Yale alum Samuel Alito's Supreme Court bid.

Sylvester, 28, a Fargo North High and Harvard grad, votes Democratic and wears a "Support Gay Marriage" T-shirt at the mall during visits to Fargo.

Over the past year, Sylvester and Pull both worked on the school's flagship Yale Law Journal editorial team. They also took the field last year against the Harvard Law Journal football team with Sylvester named most valuable player.

In the fall, Sylvester and Rudesill plan to join leading law firms on the East Coast. Pull and Korsmo have clerkships with court of appeals judges in Minneapolis and New Haven, respectively. But Pull can see himself joining the Fargo U.S. Attorney's office someday, and those who know Rudesill can picture him running for one of the two Senate seats from North Dakota.

Law school dean Harold predicts both Fargo and Yale Law School will be proud of the four.

"This is not the last you'll be hearing from these young men," he said.