America’s Lawyer-Presidents:
From Law Office to Oval Office
By Norman Gross
f our nation’s 43 presidents, 25 have
been lawyers. The first was John
Adams; the most recent was William
Jefferson Clinton. Adams had a thriving
20-year law practice, which included landmark colonial cases, such as the Boston
Massacre trial. Also, his writings and oratory provided the legal and political bases
for independence from Great Britain, and
his draft of the Massachusetts Constitution
influenced the U.S. Constitution and other
state constitutions.
In contrast, Clinton was a law school
professor for 3 years (during which time he
lost his bid for a congressional seat) before
he was elected Arkansas attorney general
and then governor. And except for a brief
period as of counsel following a defeat in
his reelection campaign, Clinton set his
sights on public office rather than law practice. In many ways, Adams and Clinton
re p resent the wide variety of legal careers
among America’s lawyer-presidents.
The details of such legal careers, however, are not widely known, as presidential
historians, scholars, and biographers have
been interested primarily in the political
and personal histories of our nation’s chief
executives. To help fill that void, the ABA
Museum of Law is producing a new exhibit, companion book, educational materials,
and related programming on America’s
lawyer-presidents. The focus is on both the
legal careers of the presidents and the
impact, if any, on their political lives and
presidencies. This article provides a snapshot of those fascinating stories.
O
Which Lawyer-Presidents Were the Best Lawyers?
In a five-part series that appeared in the
ABA Journal more than 25 years ago,
Harry Lambeth offered his selections of
“an all-star law firm” from among the
lawyer-presidents. His choices were John
Adams, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin
Harrison, and Martin Van Buren.
Harrison, notes Lambeth, may have been
the best lawyer, as he possessed a “brilliant
mind, extraordinary memory, unusual
power of analysis, and great speaking ability.” Over 25 years of law practice—which
included periods before and after his presidency—Harrison had many notable cases.
Early in his career (1854), he helped prosecute a hotel employee charged with poisoning a guest’s coffee. After having but a brief
time to learn about poisons, he carried the
day in court with his successful crossexamination of expert witnesses. More than
a decade later, President Grant called upon
Harrison to defend Grant and others in a
civil damages suit that was brought by
Lambdin Milligan after the U.S. Supreme
Court delivered its landmark 1866 ruling
bearing his name (Ex parte Milligan).
Harrison, knowing the law was not an ally
in the case, displayed his considerable
oratorical skills in swaying the jury, which
found for Milligan but awarded him a
meager $5.00 in damages.
Even though Harrison had gained legal
prominence before his presidency, having
a rgued many other prominent trials and
U.S. Supreme Court cases prior to 1888,
his legal fame (and legal fees) increased
after his failed 1892 reelection campaign
against Grover Cleveland. High-profile
cases, including appearances before the
U.S. Supreme Court, then became the
norm for Harrison, his fees sometimes
totaling $25,000 and more. His re p re s e n t ation of Venezuela in a territorial boundary
dispute with Great Britain and his election
as the first president of the Indiana State
Bar Association are among the highlights
of this period of his legal care e r.
As noted earlier, John Adams excelled
as both a practicing lawyer and a legal
scholar. He rode circuit throughout
Massachusetts (including what is now
Maine), quickly building the largest legal
practice in his province. From his classical
education, wrote the editors of the Legal
Papers of John Adams, “came the appre c i ation of law as politics, law as philosophy,
and law as jurisprudence which so colore d
Number 4 • Volume 14 • Summer 2004 • American Bar Association • Experience • 4
“America’s Law y e r-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Offi c e” by Norman Gross, published in Experience, Volume 14, No.4, Summer 2004 © 2004 by
the American Bar Association. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any
form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
Adams’ later approach to the problems of
his times . . . and their solutions.” Clearly,
his legal scholarship served him and the
emerging nation well, as reflected in his
high-profile colonial cases, his arguments
for independence, and his contributions to
our nation’s founding charters.
Martin Van Buren and Grover Cleveland
also had legal careers that spanned more
than 20 years. While one might argue
whether they earned a partnership in the
“all-star law firm,” they certainly had distinguished legal careers.
Most of Van Buren’s career was spent
in private practice. With a series of law
partners—including future U.S. Attorney
General Benjamin Butler—Van Buren
developed a highly lucrative practice
that included a large appellate caseload
in which his success rate was nearly 90
percent. He also served as New York
attorney general from 1815–19, during
which time he won 254 cases.
Van Buren had honed his legal skills at
an early age, earning the moniker “Boy
Lawyer” for his trial oratory as a teenaged
legal apprentice to a Kinderhook, New
York, lawyer. One of nine children of a
hardscrabble farmer, Van Buren had only a
meager education, his legal training providing what one historian called “the principal
discipline for his mind.” In 1814, the U.S.
Senate chose Van Buren to serve as special
prosecutor in the successful court martial
of General William Hull. Even political
rivals recognized his abilities. Said John
Randolph of Virginia, “Give him time to
collect the requisite information, and no
man can produce an abler argument.”
Grover Cleveland’s practice is not as
well known, in part because the Buffalo,
New York, lawyer preferred practice
outside of the courtroom. One of his
trials, however, garnered his client a
verdict of $274,000, then the largest award
in western New York State. Another saw
Cleveland volunteer his services in successfully defending Irish nationalists
against charges resulting from their ill-fated
invasion of Canada in the 1866 Battle of
Limestone Ridge. Cleveland was known as
a forceful, deliberate, genial, knowledgeable, and indefatigable advocate. His law
career included a stint as assistant district
attorney, a series of law partnerships, and
s e rvice as president of the local bar associa-
tion. His most successful firm represented
such high profile clients as Standard Oil.
Though the New York Central Railroad
offered him the post of general counsel,
Cleveland declined, preferring instead to
have a variety of clients and cases. In
between his presidencies, Cleveland argued
a case before the U.S. Supreme Court,
which included two Justices he had
appointed. Following his second presidency, he was in demand as a referee in business disputes, as lawyers appreciated his
honesty and knew his decisions would be
based on the law.
Lawyer Lincoln
Perhaps the first lawyer- p resident who
comes to most people’s minds is Abraham
Lincoln, and deservedly so. Lincoln’s
25-year law practice involved more than
5,100 cases, including hundreds of appearances before the Illinois Supreme Court
and one before the U.S. Supreme Court,
where he also was involved in about five
other cases. From his early days as a struggling lawyer in 1837, Lincoln’s legal reputation steadily grew to the point that he
was representing railroads and other
business interests before his election to
the presidency.
Lincoln’s legal practice in many ways
reflected his personality and character.
William Herndon offered this description
of his law partner’s approach to legal practice: “He had a keen sense of justice, and
struggled for it, throwing aside forms,
methods, and rules, until it appeared pure
as a ray of light flashing through a fogbank.” Others, including Judge David
Davis, Lincoln’s riding companion on
Illinois’ eighth judicial circuit and later his
appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, indicated that “The framework of his mental
and moral being was honesty,
and a wrong case was poorly defended by
him.” However, Lincoln did not hesitate to
“split hairs” or otherwise employ technical
or procedural measures that served his
clients’ interests.
Lincoln’s strengths were in getting to
the heart of the matter and being able to
convey his client’s argument to the jury in
a manner they could appreciate and
understand. Lincoln perf o rmed best when
he had time to pre p a re for a case, as
reflected in his large appellate caseload.
Number 4 • Volume 14 • Summer 2004 • American Bar Association • Experience • 5
“America’s Lawyer-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Offi c e” by Norman Gross, published in Experience, Volume 14, No.4, Summer 2004 © 2004 by
the American Bar Association. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any
form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
“Lincoln had a
keen sense of
justice, and
struggled for it,
throwing aside
forms, methods,
and rules, until it
appeared pure as
a ray of light
flashing through
a fog-bank.”
G ross is the director of
the ABA Museum of Law.
SUMMER 2004/EXPERIENCE
Perhaps more than any other pre s i d e n t ,
Lincoln carried his legal training and
experiences into his presidential administration. The most obvious example is the
Emancipation Proclamation, which one
historian derided as having “all the moral
grandeur of a bill of lading.” Clearly,
Lincoln had an extraord i n a ry talent in
crafting powerful statements, which he
determined would not serve his purposes
in this instance. Instead, lawyer Lincoln’s
c o n c e rnabout constitutional challenges to
the Proclamation led him to draft a precise, legalistic document with limited
scope and effect. Interestingly, history has
p roven the document’s extraord i n a ry
impact, as it, rather than the Thirt e e n t h
Amendment, has been widely re g a rded as
the death-knell of institutionalized slavery in the United States.
Other Notable Tidbits
There are many more fascinating facts
and stories about our nation’s lawyerpresidents, including the following:
• John Quincy Adams was the first
lawyer-president to argue a U.S. Supreme
Court case, both before and after his
presidency. His first such argument was
in the landmark 1810 case of Fletcher v.
Peck, and his fifth and final High Court
appearance was in the famous Amistad
case in 1841.
• Eight lawyer-presidents have argued
cases before the U.S. Supreme Court:
John Quincy Adams, James Polk, Abraham
Lincoln, James Garfield, Benjamin
H a rrison, Grover Cleveland, William
Howard Taft, and Richard Nixon (for
further details, see Allen Sharp’s article
on “Presidents as Supreme Court
Advocates” in the July 2003 issue of the
Journal of Supreme Court History).
• Thomas Jefferson’s dealings with a
batture controversy in New Orleans provide a fascinating study of presidential
law practice, and his postpresidential
legal activities involving this dispute
provide further insight about Jefferson
the lawyer (and the man).
• Rutherford B. Hayes is the only
U.S. president to have graduated from
Harvard Law School.
• Chester Arthur was part of a landmark civil rights case in New York City
that led to the integration of the city’s
railroad cars.
• Gerald Ford attended three law
schools—Michigan, North Carolina,
and Yale.
Lawyer and Nonlawyer Presidents
Photos of America’s 25 lawyer-presidents
appear on pages 4–5. In researching the
topic, there were some recurring misconceptions about which presidents were and
were not lawyers. Thus, it seems worthwhile to address such issues.
James Madison, the “Father of the
Constitution,” was not a lawyer. While he
took scattered courses on the law, he never
seriously pursued a legal career. This also
was the case with Teddy Roosevelt, who
briefly attended Columbia Law School
before moving on to other pursuits. And
John F. Kennedy’s road to the White House
did not include a stop at any law school.
On the other hand, Andrew Jackson
established a successful law practice and
served as a Tennessee superior court
justice before gaining fame on the battlefield and in the political arena. James
Garfield’s first case was before the United
States Supreme Court, where he provided
the prevailing argument in Ex parte
Milligan. Garfield would argue a dozen
more cases before the High Court, many
against preeminent lawyers of the day (e.g.,
David Dudley Field, Benjamin Bristow, and
others). And Woodrow Wilson failed in a
brief attempt to establish a law practice in
Atlanta before pursuing successful careers
in academe and politics.
The America’s Lawyer-Presidents Project
In September, the ABA Museum of Law
will premiere the “America’s LawyerPresidents” exhibit in its new facilities at
321 North Clark Street in Chicago. In
August, a companion book—published by
Northwestern University Press—will make
its first appearance at the ABA Annual
Meeting in Atlanta. Additional project
components include a website, educational
materials, and public programming.
Museum facilities will also be available for
guided tours, meetings, and special events
(the SOC reception on September 9 will be
held there). In 2006, after its showing in
Chicago, the exhibit will travel to other
cities throughout the country. ■
Number 4 • Volume 14 • Summer 2004 • American Bar Association • Experience • 6
“America’s Law y e r-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Offi c e” by Norman Gross, published in Experience, Volume 14, No.4, Summer 2004 © 2004 by
the American Bar Association. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any
form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.