William Thaddeus Coleman

William T. Coleman, Jr. is a Senior Partner and the Senior Counselor in O'Melveny's Washington, DC office. He joined the Firm in 1977, after serving as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (1975-77) in the Ford Administration. Prior thereto, he had been an active practitioner in a Philadelphia law firm, and before that at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. Recipient, Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995). Coleman was the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk. He was one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in which the U.S. Supreme Court held racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. He served as a member of the NAACP's national legal committee, director and member of its executive committee, and president of the board of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Coleman was also a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Committee on Government Employment Policy (1959-1961), a senior consultant and assistant counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (1964), and a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1963-1975). In 1969, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the twenty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Coleman was also a member of the National Commission on Productivity (1971-1972). In September 2004 he was appointed to the United States Court of Military Commission Review. In 2006 he served as an honorary pallbearer for the state funeral of President Gerald Ford. Coleman has received numerous awards and honors, including honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the College of William & Mary, and Howard University. In 1979 the President of France conferred on Coleman membership in the Legion of Honor.