Presidents' Day: America's Lawyer-Presidents

Did you know that of our forty-three presidents, twenty-five have been lawyers? The book America’s Lawyer-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Office describes the distinctive legal career of each president and the path that each took to get to the Oval Office. For instance:

• This lawyer-president established the first American law professorship.
• He was the first lawyer-president.
• He was the only man to serve as both President and Chief Justice of the United States.
• His law career spanned almost 25 years and more than 5,000 cases. 
• This self-proclaimed "country lawyer" considered law "the highest of the professions."
• He was the only Harvard Law School graduate to serve as President.
• This preeminent trial lawyer was described as having an eloquence that "stirs and rules the heart and conquers the reason."
• He began his career as a 14-year old apprentice and was known as the "boy lawyer"

• This lawyer-president argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the defendants in the Amistad case.

To learn more, check out America’s Lawyer-Presidents: From Law Office to Oval Office, or test your knowledge by taking the ABA Museum of Law’s trivia game on the subject.

J. Fusaris