He finished his secondary education in 1931 and graduated from the Royal Frederick University with the cand.jur. degree in 1937. After staying abroad for one year he was a deputy judge in Sør-Hedmark District Court from 1939 to 1940 and attorney at Otta from 1941 to 1944. After the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, he was decorated with the Defence Medal 1940–1945 for resistance, and from 1945 to 1948 he worked as a public prosecutor in the post-war legal purge in Oppland.
