Thurgood Marshall Jr. (born August 12, 1956) is an American lawyer and son of the late
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
Justice
Thurgood Marshall. Marshall worked in the
Bill Clinton White House and is a retired international law firm partner. He also served as chairman of the
Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service
The Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service is the governing body of the United States Postal Service (USPS). The board oversees the activities of the Postal Service, while the postmaster general actively manages its day-to-day o ...
and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the
Ford Foundation.
He is a member of the board of directors of
En+ Group, the world's largest producer of low-carbon aluminum and independent hydropower; and DRB Capital a financial services firm headquartered in Florida. According to documents filed with the SEC, he is a director serving on the board of
Corrections Corporation of America, the largest commercial vendor of federal detainment and prisoner transport in the United States. Since 2012, Marshall is also an independent director serving on the board of
Genesco, an international footwear and apparel retailer based in
Nashville, Tennessee.
Early life and education
Marshall was born on August 12, 1956, in New York City. He is the son of Justice
Thurgood Marshall, the first
Black American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
to serve on the
U.S. Supreme Court and
Cecilia Suyat
Cecilia Suyat Marshall (July 20, 1928 – November 22, 2022) was an American civil rights activist and historian from Hawaii who was married to Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, from 1955 until his death i ...
, a
Filipino American who was Marshall's second wife after his first wife died of lung cancer. His brother is
John W. Marshall, a former Virginia Secretary of Public Safety and former U.S. Marshals Service Director.
Marshall attended school at
Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., and the
Dalton School in New York City and graduated from
Phillips Exeter Academy
(not for oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God)
, location = 20 Main Street
, city = Exeter, New Hampshire
, zipcode ...
. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from the
University of Virginia in 1978, and a
Juris Doctor
The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law
and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
at the
University of Virginia School of Law
The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...
in 1981.
Career
Government
Early in his career, Marshall clerked for United States District Judge
Barrington D. Parker. He practiced law with a firm based in Washington and New York prior to working on Capitol Hill and in The White House. He served as a Counsel to Senator
Edward M. Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
with the Senate's Judiciary Committee; Counsel to Senator Ernest F. Hollings and Senator Albert Gore Jr. with the Senate's Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee; and Counsel to Senator Albert Gore Jr. with the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee.
Marshall served as director of legislative affairs and deputy counsel to Vice President
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...
, for whom he had previously worked in the
United States Senate and as deputy campaign manager of the
Al Gore 1988 presidential campaign and as traveling policy advisor on the
Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign
The 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, was announced on October 3, 1991, at the Old State House in Little Rock, Arkansas. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 1992, the c ...
.
Marshall worked in the Clinton administration from 1997 as assistant to the president and
White House Cabinet Secretary
The White House Cabinet secretary is a high-ranking position within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The White House Cabinet Secretary is the head of the Office of Cabinet Affairs within the White House Office and the p ...
. In that role, he managed White House relations with the executive departments; his responsibilities included organizing cabinet meetings and briefings, compiling a daily update of cabinet department activities, and coordinating responses to natural and transportation disasters. As vice-chair of the White House Olympic Task Force, he coordinated federal government's preparations for the
2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic and
Paralympic Games
The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the ''Games of the Paralympiad'', is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power and impaire ...
. He was also a member of the Interagency Task Force on U.S. Coast Guard Roles and Missions.
President Clinton named Marshall to the Presidential Delegation to the Inauguration of South African President
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...
in 1994. Marshall also served as a member of the Presidential Election Observer Delegation to Bosnia in 1998. That delegation was led by Ambassador
Robert Gelbard
Robert Sidney Gelbard (born March 6, 1944) is an American diplomat and former United States Ambassador to Bolivia (1988–1991) and Indonesia (1999–2001). He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and is a 1964 graduate of Colby Colle ...
. Marshall was a member of the United States Delegation to the
2000 Summer Olympics
The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...
.
Private practice
Marshall joined Bingham McCutchen as a partner when it acquired
Swidler Berlin
Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman LLP was a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, itself a product of the merger between D.C. law firm Swidler & Berlin and New York City's Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman LLP in 1998. The firm merged with Bingham McCu ...
, where he had been a partner since 2003. In addition to counseling clients, Marshall provided internal advice to Swidler Berlin on ethics compliance and corporate governance. He became a managing director of Swidler Berlin's
Harbour Group in 2005. He became part of Bingham McCutchen's Government Affairs practice, counseling clients on relations with Congress, the Executive Branch and independent regulatory agencies. He has provided legislative and regulatory counsel on corporate mergers, professional and amateur sports, commercial aviation, utilities and banking regulation, and legal process reform.
After his work in the Clinton administration, Marshall joined Swidler Berlin.
Marshall joined Morgan Lewis in 2014 when it acquired a group of lawyers from the now-defunct
Bingham McCutchen firm.
Marshall has been named one of Washington's top campaign and election lawyers by ''
Washingtonian Magazine'', a leading lawyer in government relations law by The Best Lawyers in America, and included on the Best Lawyers List of the ''
Washington Post Magazine''. ''
Newsweek'' named him one of the 100 people to watch in the new century.
Publications
Marshall has authored or co-authored columns that have appeared in the ''
Tampa Bay Times'', ''
Sabato's Crystal Ball
''Sabato's Crystal Ball'' is an online political newsletter and election handicapper. It predicts electoral outcomes for the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, U.S. governors, and U.S. presidential races, with electo ...
'' (UVA Center for Politics), ''
The Straits Times'', ''
The Hill
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...
'', ''
The Legal Times
ALM (formerly American Lawyer Media) is a media company headquartered in the Socony–Mobil Building in New York City, and is a provider of specialized business news and information, focused primarily on the legal, insurance, and commercial re ...
'', ''
The Washington Post'', and
The National WWII Museum.
Other work
Marshall is a board member or trustee with the Campaign Legal Center, The Third Way and the Schwarzenegger Institute for State & Global Policy. He serves on the local DC boards of President Lincoln's Cottage, the Dean's Advisory Council for the UMD School of Public Policy, and the DC Grays. Marshall was a senior advisor to AllAmericaPAC, a political organization establish by former Senator
Evan Bayh. Marshall was the director of congressional relations for
Wesley Clark's 2004 presidential campaign. He has been involved with the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is an American foundation that was chartered by Congress in 1984 to increase the resources available for the conservation of the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats.
Authority
The Natio ...
, serving on the board of the Foundation for eight years and promoting environmental science and other science education. He also volunteers at a local food bank and other community service outlets in the Washington, D.C. area.
Marshall has been a member of the
United States Postal Service Board of Governors, Ford Foundation, Corrections Corporation of America, Genesco, The Third Way,
National Women's Law Center, the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and the Supreme Court Historical Society. He has been a member of the Ethics Advisory Committee of the United States Olympic Committee since its inception in 2001 until 2012 and chaired the Advisory Commission of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Election Law.
He has participated in election and election law observer missions to Bosnia, Chile, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. Marshall is also a veteran of U.S. presidential campaigns.
Personal life
Marshall and his wife Teddi Levy Marshall, the vice president and founder of Rolling Greens Inc., were married on April 25, 2008. They were married at the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
and Associate Justice
Stephen G. Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...
performed the ceremony. The couple lives in the
Washington, D.C. area and they have two sons, Thurgood William and Edward Patrick Marshall.
References
External links
Biography at Morgan Lewis website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Thurgood Jr.
1956 births
African-American lawyers
Georgetown Day School alumni
American jurists of Filipino descent
Clinton administration personnel
Living people
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
American politicians of Filipino descent
CoreCivic people
Genesco people
Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
Dalton School alumni
Thurgood Marshall