Louis Falk Oberdorfer (February 21, 1919 - February 21, 2013) was a United States Supreme Court clerk, attorney, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Tax Division, civil rights worker, and district court judge.
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Early life and education
Oberdorfer was born in Birmingham, Alabama to A. Leo Oberdorfer, an attorney and author, and Stella Falk Oberdorfer. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1939. He then attended Yale Law School from 1939 until fall 1941, when he was drafted to serve in the United States Army. After four years of military service during World War II, he returned to Yale and graduated in 1946. Oberdorfer served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justice Hugo L. Black, an Alabamian who had been a friend and law colleague of Oberdorfer's father.
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Professional career
After working as Justice Black's sole law clerk during 1946-1947, Oberdorfer went into private practice in Washington D.C. with the firm Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison as a tax attorney until his friend and law school classmate Deputy Attorney General Byron White asked him to join the U.S. Justice Department in 1961. He was appointed Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division but, because the division was well organized and largely self-sustaining, he focused his energies on other law-related issues, particularly civil rights. During this time he befriended Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy.
He returned to private practice in 1965 with Wilmer, Cutler, & Pickering. Oberdorfer remained friendly with the Kennedy family and personally represented Jacqueline Kennedy in a 1966-1967 public legal battle with historian William Manchester over the ownership of interview materials and their publication in his book The Death of a President about the John F. Kennedy assassination. In 1968, Oberdorfer was elected co-chairman of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He served as president of the District of Columbia Bar Association in 1977-1978. When Griffin Bell became attorney general in 1977, Oberdorfer was considered for the deputy position but was instead appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. As a judge, he opposed mandatory sentencing policies, especially with respect to drug offenders. He assumed status as a senior judge in 1992. He also taught part-time at Georgetown Law Center from 1993 until his death.
Death
Oberdorfer died at his home on his 94th birthday, February 21, 2013.
References
Sources
- Louis Falk Oberdorfer at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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