Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
I have to give the Creighton School of Law a lot of credit for giving me this kind of servant’s heart.
By Micah Mertes
His office doesn’t look like the judge’s chambers you see on TV. For starters, Batman is there. And Thor, as well as Judge Barbie, Buzz Lightyear and various G.I. Joes.
On the shelves behind his desk, the Hon. Horacio Wheelock, JD’02, has collected dozens of action figures, including members of Marvel’s Avengers and DC Comics’ Justice League. These toys are, however unlikely, crucial to his role as a judge of Nebraska’s 4th District Court.
Nearly half of Wheelock’s docket is child custody cases. “I interview a lot of children, some as young as 5, to determine custody,” he says. “And this is, of course, highly uncomfortable for kids.
“With these action figures, I’m trying to break the ice and make this as warm an experience as possible. It’s a way to establish that kind of human connection while also obtaining the information I need to make the decision.”
(Wheelock said the most popular superheroes in his office are Hulk and Spider-Man, no question.)
In all cases, Wheelock sees his role as a servant to others. “It’s about providing the best customer service to each and every person — attorney, litigant, citizen — who appears in front of me. That’s how I’ve lived my entire professional career, and I have to give the Creighton School of Law a lot of credit for giving me this kind of servant’s heart.”
Wheelock’s efforts in this area aren’t going unnoticed. The Nebraska State Bar Association recently released the results of its 2026 Judicial Performance Evaluation, in which more than 1,000 attorneys evaluated every judge in the state. In every area — judicial competence, impartiality, communication, temperament and administrative capacity — Wheelock had among the highest marks of any sitting judge in Nebraska.
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Judge Wheelock has lived in Nebraska longer than he has anywhere else. For the first few years of his life, the very idea of “home” was tumultuous, ever out of reach.
Wheelock was born in Managua, Nicaragua, but only lived there for about two years, his family leaving due to the nation’s civil war.
“Then we went to El Salvador, and the war just kept following us,” he says. “We were only there for six months, and then we established domicile in Guatemala for another year. And finally we immigrated to the United States shortly after I turned 4. Our port of entry was Miami International Airport on August 14 of 1980.”
In fifth grade, Wheelock became a legal permanent resident. His junior year of high school, he became a U.S. citizen.
“I’m not shy in saying that the United States and the great state of Nebraska have given me every single opportunity to succeed that my country of origin was not able to do because of the civil war,” Wheelock says. “I will forever be grateful for that. And Creighton, in particular, has been fundamental to giving me these opportunities.”
Wheelock found Creighton (and Omaha) because of a Jesuit. While he was finishing his MBA at the private Jesuit Spring Hill College in Alabama, Wheelock had a fateful conversation with the college’s then-president, Rev. Gregory Francis Lucey, SJ. Father Lucey had recently attended a retreat at Creighton and was singing its praises to Wheelock, telling him he should really take a look at Creighton as he was applying to law schools.
“Taking a look at Creighton was one of the best decisions of my life,” he says now. “The campus was so inviting and wonderful from the start. Several professors had a significant impact on my career and life and continue to do so: Professor Mangrum, Dean Borchers, Professor Fenner, Professor Melilli, Professor Neumeister.”
Today, Wheelock is himself a teacher at Creighton. For the last few years, he’s taught a course on business law in the Heider College of Business. He’s as popular an instructor as he is a judge, winning last year’s award for adjunct faculty of the year.
“I see teaching as an opportunity for me to give back, to stay engaged with the students and to recruit some of them to go to law school,” he says. “Hopefully Creighton’s law school.”
After graduating from the School of Law in 2002, Wheelock worked briefly as a prosecutor in Florida before returning to Nebraska, first as a public defender and then practicing immigration law for about a decade. He began his judgeship in 2015.
“And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the most important part of the story,” he says. “Not only did law school give me my career; it introduced me to my future wife.”
Wheelock met Lisa (Burak) Wheelock, MD'03 (now a pediatric radiology physician at Children’s Hospital of Omaha) while they were both living in Heider Hall.
“I’m lucky and blessed that I found her and that we’ve made a home and raised our son here,” he says. “None of this would have happened without Creighton.”
