A Young Lawyer's Rendezvous with Destiny

Making a Difference with a Law Degree

Having finished first in his class at Harvard Law School, having clerked on the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, and having been the first African American to serve as law clerk to a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, William Coleman couldn’t get a job with a major Philadelphia law firm, so he went to work with a major New York firm.

After a year, he got a call from Thurgood Marshall, who needed help with a series of cases challenging segregation in public education. Thus began his involvement with the team of brilliant lawyers that changed the face of American society.

Coleman eventually became a key legal strategist for the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that declared racial separation in schools unconstitutional. He coauthored the antisegregation legal brief in that case. In 1982, he successfully argued before the Supreme Court in favor of upholding a ban on tax exemptions for private schools that refuse to admit black students. He has served in several leadership positions with the NAACP.

In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford named Coleman secretary of transportation. In two years on the job, Coleman oversaw the opening of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s car testing center in Ohio and the enactment of regulations covering the safety of pipelines and hazardous materials shipment.

William Coleman recently retired from a six-year stint as a judge on the United States Court of Military Commission Review, charged with hearing appeals of Guantanamo military commissions’ decisions. He continues to advise corporate boards and the NAACP.

“From his perspective, it’s the combination of public and private involvement that’s so instructive,” Hardin Coleman says. “That combination is what made him, he feels, most useful.”

President Bill Clinton awarded Coleman the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. The native Philadelphian received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and his law degree five years later. He is a senior partner and the senior counselor at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm.

Can You Make a Difference with a Law Degree?

Bard College is a highly selective institution of higher learning in upstate New York. Bard prides itself on its deep commitment to civic engagement and its long tradition of preparing young people to make a difference in the wider world.

Bard’s pre-law advisor is Roger Berkowitz, Associate Professor of Political Studies, Human Rights, and Philosophy, and Academic Director of Bard’s Hannah Arendt Center.

Not long ago I spoke with Professor Berkowitz about his approach to pre-law counseling. Perhaps I caught him on a bad day, but his depiction of the legal profession was one which I found to be extremely novel.

Specifically, Professor Berkowitz suggested that the opportunities to make a difference in the legal profession are very limited. He noted that there are only so many public public interest law firms and, therefore, only so many opportunities to serve the public interest through the law. If a student decides to pursue a career in environmental law, for example, she will probably end up counseling corporations every day on how to get away with polluting the environment as much as possible.

This was a view of the legal profession with which I was largely unfamiliar. I found myself asking: Is this the way that most people think of the legal profession? Is it an accurate view?

Professor Berkowitz has invited me to speak with his students about whether it is possible to make a difference with a law degree.

What should I tell them?

Jump Starting New Development

Charles S. Johnson has counseled a variety of clients in connection with the creation and maintenance of tax allocation districts.

With Mr. Johnson’s assistance, the City of East Point in 2001 created the Camp Creek Tax Allocation District (described in this video) in an area that had long remained undeveloped, largely because of its difficult topography and its lack of infrastructure. In 2002, East Point issued $22 million in tax allocation bonds to finance the construction of infrastructure in the area. Lured by the prospect of this infrastructure financing, one developer constructed a major business park, and another developer has opened the first major retail center to open in South Fulton County in the previous 50 years.

In 2006, Mr. Johnson assisted East Point in the creation of the East Point Corridors Tax Allocation District, designed to attract development to the City's traditional commercial corridors.  In 2012, Mr. Johnson negotiated a development agreement which brought the first major retail development to the City's long-neglected East Side.

Also in 2012, Mr. Johnson assisted the City of Kingsland in creating an incentive package designed to support a major destination resort.

Charles S. Johnson: Determined to Make an Impact

From Atlanta Tribune - The Magazine, April, 2011

Born in Nashville, Tenn., at a time when his namesake grandfather was president of Fisk University and his father was a student at Meharry Medical College, Charles S. Johnson Ill was raised in an era where the legal profession for African Americans was not considered "the ticket " to success.

That said, Johnson went to Boston College Law School in 1970, hoping that law would give him insight into what made society tick and because -­ as he understood it - a law degree offered a variety of opportunities to "make a difference." Disturbed by the demise of Freedom Foods, a black-owned supermarket chain, Johnson wondered if they would have survived if they had had a good antitrust lawyer. It occurred to him that the next civil rights frontier would be a struggle for economic equality, to be fought in both the court systems and society at large.

Four decades later, a Gate City Hall of Fame attorney and perennial Super Lawyer, Johnson has climbed to the top ladder of success at Atlanta 's best law firms, and held as many civic leadership positions as anyone, in or outside of the legal profession. The Holland & Knight LLP public policy and commercial litigation partner has seen more progress than he could have ever imagined, and continues to be "in the arena" as it happens.

Many forget that you were the first African American to make partner at Alston & Bird, before resigning to enter the 1986 race for U.S. Congress in which John Lewis and Julian Bond were also candidates - Seemingly an "all or nothing" risk, yet you have accomplished tons in law and society since. What is your secret?

Putting together a sustainable law practice after my political hiatus was not the easiest task. But I worked hard, and pursued a passion for taking a legal challenge, assembling a team to meet that challenge, and achieving results that many thought were unattainable. Being partner at a major firm - whether at Alston or presently at Holland & Knight - has enabled me to bring big firm resources and techniques to the table.

You have held a plethora of Atlanta leadership roles. Which do you consider to be your top outside leadership positions and why?

As (the first African-American) chairman of Georgia State Board of Bar Examiners, I think that I was able to strengthen public confidence in the Board's work. As chairman of the Atlanta Judicial Commission, I worked with three mayors, but especially Mayors Jackson and Young, to crea te a municipal court bench that was highly qualified and representative. As chairman of the Atlanta Urban League, I tried to push the League to envision strategies for economic independence. During my chairmanship of Atlanta Legal Aid Society, we saw the Society successfully complete its first lawyers giving campaign. As chairman of Leadership Atlanta, and previously as its membership chairman, I pushed for the development of impact teams in the areas of race relations and education. As president of Gate City Bar Association, we established the bar's involvement in judicial selection, placing special emphasis on the federal bench. And I cannot wait to get going in my new role as founder and co-chair (with Verna Cleveland) of the Advisory Committee for the Future Foundation.

Discuss what you consider to be your top legal victories.

I filed an amicus brief in the DeKalb School Desegregation Case, and saw the U.S. Supreme Court embrace the position which we had advanced. After the case was remanded to the District Court, we used this ruling to force the school board to build more classrooms in South DeKalb. I also persuaded U.S. District Judge William O'Kelly to rule that there is a federally protected right to engage in "testing" activity, proven to be the most effective way to enforce the provisions of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. More recently, I was able to persuade several courts to rule that the State of Georgia can't just do what it wants in its administration of the State Medicaid program but that, instead, it must follow its own rules. These Medicaid rulings have been important to the sustainability of Grady Hospital.

Do you have a legal mentor?

Lots of them. At the Alston firm - corporate lawyers Harvey Hill and Neal Williams. antitrust lawyers Mike Doyle and John Train, and litigators like Ben Johnson, Neal Batson and Chip Peabody. Outside of the Alston firm, attorneys like John L. Kennedy, P Andrew Patterson and Thomas G. Sampson. •