Counsel for the Situation

Shaping the Law to Realize America's Promise

William T. Coleman, Donald T. Bliss

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780815704881
• eBook ISBN: 9780815704942
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Law Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

""Bill Coleman's story is one that younger generations should mark and inwardly digest, lest they forget the pioneers who helped to make a better America possible."" —From the Foreword by Stephen G. Breyer
William Coleman has spent a lifetime opening doors and breaking down barriers. He has been an eyewitness to history; moreover, he has made history. This is his inspiring story, in his own words.
Americans of color faced daunting barriers in the 1940s. Despite graduating first in his class at Harvard Law and clerking for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Coleman was shut out of major East Coast law firms. But as the Philadelphia native writes, ""The times, they were a'changing."" He not only benefited from that change—he helped propel it, by way of dogged determination, undeniable intellect, and stellar accomplishment.
Coleman's legal work with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund helped jumpstart the civil rights movement in the 1950s. He was the first American of color to clerk for the Supreme Court, and later served as senior counsel to the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1975 he was appointed secretary of transportation by President Gerald Ford—the first American of color to serve in a Republican cabinet—and in 1995 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton.
At his core, Bill Coleman is a lawyer. He strives to be a ""counsel for the situation""—an advocate able to take on major matters in a variety of legal disciplines while upholding the highest traditions of justice and the public interest. He is fiercely proud of the legal profession's role in a democratic society and free economy, and he is grateful for the opportunities that profession has afforded him in the court room, the board room, and the corridors of power. It is through this prism that he relates his own story—his life and the law.
The results speak for them

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Copyright Information
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Prologue: Achieving the American Dream as Counsel for the Situation
• Mr. Coleman Goes to Washington
• Part I: The Formative Years
• Roots
• Making Jewels Out of Rough Diamonds
• Home Sweet Home
• School Days
• Sibling Rivalries
• College Years
• Part II: Learning to Be a Good Lawyer
• Harvard Law School
• War
• After the War
• Clerking for the Good Judge
• Justice Frankfurter
• Life at the Supreme Court and in the Nation's Capital
• Part III: New York, New York
• From the Ivory Tower to the Working World
• American History in Black and White
• Chipping Away at Plessy
• The Brown Team
• Part IV: A Philadelphia Lawyer
• The City of Brotherly Love
• Expert in Relevance
• The Tipping Point
• Reargument, December 7, 1953
• With All Delibrate Speed
• Enforcing the Court's Order
• A Lawyer's Public Service Obligation
• Managing the Dilworth Litigation Department
• The Girard College Case
• The Legacy of Houston-Hastie-Marshall
• The Nixon Years
• Part V: Serving in the Ford Cabinet
• Change in Course
• Cabinet-Style Government
• Getting to Know the Department of Transportation
• Making Transportation Policy
• The Decisionmaking Process
• A Time of Transition
• Part VI: A Washington Lawyer
• The Sun Also Rises in the East
• Building the Washington Practice
• The Bob Jones Case
• Supreme Court Practice
• The Robert Bork Hearings
• Is Race Still Relevant?
• Opportunities for Public Service
• Reflecting on Republicans and Race
• Counsel for the Situation
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Chronology of the Life of William T. Coleman Jr.
• Principal Cases Cited
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index
• Back Cover