Robert H. Jackson: A Life in Judgment

Until he joined the US government in 1934, Robert H. Jackson had been a lawyer in private practice in Upstate New York who was admitted to the bar without going to college and after completing only one year of law school. Jackson became, in rapid succession, United States Solicitor General and United States Attorney General, where he successfully defended New Deal programs before the Supreme Court. In 1941, FDR nominated him to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, on which he served until his death in 1954, only months after his adding his vote to the unanimous decision in Brown V. Board of Education.