Fortas, Abe (1910–1982)

US Supreme Court justice. He was an unofficial adviser to Lyndon Johnson, who appointed him to the US Supreme Court in 1965. Revelations of corruption led to his resignation – making him the first person driven to resign from the Supreme Court.

He was born in Memphis, Tennessee. After teaching at Yale Law School, he served in a series of government agencies. He became an adviser to the US delegation to the organizational meeting of the United Nations (1945) and was then adviser to the first session of the General Assembly (1946). He began to practice law privately in Washington, DC, combining a corporate practice with cases in defence of civil liberties. After his appointment to the US Supreme Court, Johnson nominated him for chief justice in 1968, but conservatives who opposed Fortas forced him to withdraw. It was revelations that he had been accepting money from a foundation set up by a man convicted of stock manipulation that led to his resignation and he returned to private practice.