Abe Fortas remains one of the most controversial figures in American legal history, driven from the Supreme Court under a cloud of scandal that forced his resignation.
Before his appointment to the nation’s highest court, Fortas co-founded a Washington law firm that would go on to become one of the most prominent names in Biglaw.
His partners in that founding venture included a former head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Both of his co-founders were significant New Deal power brokers, deeply embedded in the political and regulatory machinery of mid-twentieth century Washington.
One of the founding partners had also served as a federal appeals judge before leaving the bench to help establish the firm.
Fortas himself had argued one of the most consequential cases in American legal history, Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established the right to counsel.
That case, argued before the very court Fortas would later join, cemented his reputation as one of the sharpest legal minds of his generation.
When Fortas accepted his appointment to the Supreme Court, his name was quietly removed from the firm’s masthead, as is customary when partners enter judicial service.
His subsequent resignation from the Court, making him the only Supreme Court justice ever driven from the bench by scandal, did nothing to diminish the firm he left behind.
The firm today carries only the surnames of the two surviving founders, having shed the Fortas name entirely from its identity long ago.
Despite that turbulent history, the practice has endured and expanded, remaining a marquee presence in Biglaw and a significant force in Washington legal and regulatory circles.
The story of the firm serves as a reminder that institutions can outlast even the most dramatic falls from grace among their founders.
Few law firms carry such a layered history, built on New Deal ambition, Supreme Court controversy, and decades of quiet but formidable staying power.