At 97, Groundbreaking Former Federal Judge Is Upbeat and Still Practicing Law
From a distance, former U.S. District Judge George Leighton looks to be in his 50s or early 60s.
But the groundbreaking lawyer who managed to graduate magna cum laude from Howard University, despite never going to high school, is 97 years old, the New York Times reports.
Arguing a case recently in Cook County court, Leighton “looks as if he jumped out of a Hugo Boss show window,” the Tribune says. “His hearing, eyesight, cholesterol—you name it—are all fine.”
Leighton’s parents were Portuguese immigrants. As a youth, Leighton worked in cranberry bogs and blueberry and strawberry fields, leaving only a few months a year to attend school. He completed the seventh grade at 17, then took on a variety of jobs, on an oil tanker, in restaurants and in a dance band. After graduating from Howard, he became one of the few nonwhites admitted to Harvard Law School. Leighton’s education was interrupted by World War II, but he later completed his degree.
In Chicago, Leighton was barred from the segregated Chicago Bar Association. With the help of then-lawyer Thurgood Marshall, he successfully fought charges of conspiracy to incite a riot for representing a black family barred from their apartment in an all-white suburb. He was appointed to the federal bench by President Gerald Ford.
Leighton doesn’t drink coffee or smoke, and limits his alcohol to an occasional sherry. He shuns exercise. But his weight has varied little over the years, his recall is “startling,” and “he is as upbeat as a religious broadcaster,” the story says.
