Early life and education

Edwards was born in New York, New York, the oldest of three children and the son of Arline Ross Edwards and George H. Edwards. His parents were divorced in 1950 and Edwards and his two sisters, Verne Debourg and Pamela Matthews, were raised by their mother. In 1952-53, his mother attended Smith College where she earned a Master's degree in social work. While his mother was away, Edwards lived with his grandparents, whom he adored, in Harlem, New York. When his mother returned, the family moved to Long Island, New York, where Edwards attended Uniondale High School and was president of the first graduating class. In 1961, Edwards' mother married Thomas Lyle; Edwards shared a very close relationship with his stepfather.

Edwards received a B.S. degree from Cornell University in 1962 and a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School in 1965. He graduated from law school with distinction and was a member of the Michigan Law Review and the Order of the Coif.

During his time in Michigan, Edwards spent time with his father, George H. Edwards, a long-time member of the Michigan House of Representatives; his stepmother, Esther Gordy Edwards, a Senior Vice President at Motown Record Company; and Berry Gordy, Jr., the renowned founder of Motown Record Company.

Professional career: 1965-1980

Despite his very strong academic record in law school, Edwards had difficulty in finding a job in the legal profession because he was African American. All of the major law firms to which he applied openly rejected him because of his race. It was only after Professor Russell Smith, his mentor at Michigan, interceded on his behalf that he was hired at Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson. He worked with the firm in Chicago, Illinois from 1965 to 1970 specializing in labor relations law and collective bargaining.

In 1970, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School and became the first African American to teach at the law school. His teaching and scholarship focused on labor law, collective bargaining, labor law in the public sector, employment discrimination, negotiations, and higher education and the law. In 1974, he and his then-wife Becky, and their children, Brent and Michelle, traveled to Brussels, Belgium, where Edwards was a Visiting Professor of Law at the Free University of Brussels. In 1975, Edwards accepted an invitation to visit at Harvard Law School. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School during the 1975-76 school year and was awarded tenure in 1976. While at Harvard, Edwards was also a faculty member at the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard University from 1976 through 1982. During this period, he co-authored a book on Higher Education and the Law, which was a major shift in his academic work. In the spring of 1977, Edwards and his family returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he rejoined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School. In 1980, Edwards was the co-author of four different casebooks (the only legal scholar in the country at the time to achieve the feat).

In 1977, Edwards was appointed to the Board of Directors of Amtrak. After serving on the Board for a year or so, Edwards was elected Chairman by the other members of the Board. He resigned his position with Amtrak when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1980. From 1970 until 1980, Edwards served as neutral labor arbitrator on a number of major company and union arbitration panels; he was also Vice President of the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

When President Carter took office in 1977, there were only two blacks and one woman among the active federal court of appeals judges. To address this situation, the President established merit selection panels to identify and recommend highly qualified female and minority attorneys for appointment to the federal bench. In 1979, the judicial selection panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sent nine names to then-Attorney General Griffin Bell. From that list, President Carter nominated Patricia Wald, Abner Mikva, and Edwards to serve on the court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was later nominated when an additional opening arose on the D.C. Circuit. Edwards was nominated by the President in December 1979, and confirmed by the Senate on February 20, 1980. The President signed his commission to join the court on February 21, 1980. He was 39 years old when he joined the court, reputedly the youngest federal court of appeals judge sitting at the time.

Service on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

Edwards served as Chief Judge from the fall of 1994 until July 2001. During his nearly seven years as Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit, Edwards directed numerous IT initiatives at the D.C. Circuit; oversaw a complete reorganization of the Clerk’s Office and Legal Division;implemented case management programs that helped to cut the court’s case backlog and reduce case disposition times; successfully pursued congressional support for the construction of the William B. Bryant Annex to the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse; presided over the court’s hearings in United States v. Microsoft; established programs to enhance communications with the lawyers who practice before the court; and received high praise from members of the bench, bar, and press for fostering collegial relations among the members of the court.

Law teaching and scholarship since 1980

Since 1980, Edwards has taught at a number of law schools, including Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. He is presently a professor of law at the NYU School of Law, where he has taught since 1990. In 2010, he was the C.V. Starr Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the Peking University School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen, China. Edwards is the coauthor of five books. His most recent book is Edwards, Elliott,& Levy, Federal Standards of Review (2013). One of his most significant publications, "The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession", 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34 (1992), has been the source of extensive comment, discussion, and debate among legal scholars and practitioners. The article has been recognized as "one of the most-cited law review articles of all time." Two other articles, Edwards & Livermore, "The Pitfalls of Empirical Studies That Attempt to Understand the Factors Affecting Appellate Decisionmaking", 58 Duke L.J.1895 (2009) and "The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making", 151 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639 (May 2003), explain how appellate judges decide cases and refute the claim that the personal ideologies and political leanings of the judges are crucial determinants in the decision-making process. In 2004, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Edwards authored "The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity," 102 Mich. L. Rev. 944 (2004), drawing on his own personal and professional experiences to reflect on racial equality and inequality in America over the past 50 years and pondered the consequences of the shift from racial assimilation to diversity as a means of achieving racial equality.

Work with the National Academy of Sciences

In 2006, Edwards was appointed by the United States National Research Council at the National Academy of Sciences to serve as co-chair of the Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Science Community. On February 18, 2009, the Committee published a widely hailed study reporting serious deficiencies in the nation's forensic science system and calling for major reforms and new research. The report said that rigorous and mandatory certification programs for forensic scientists were lacking, as were strong standards and protocols for analyzing and reporting on evidence. The report also indicated that there was a dearth of peer-reviewed, published studies establishing the scientific bases and reliability of many forensic methods, and that many forensic science labs were underfunded, understaffed, and had no effective oversight. Numerous reform efforts have been initiated in the wake of the report. In 2013, Edwards was appointed to the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law at the National Academy of Sciences.

Professional activities

Edwards is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Board of Directors, Institute for Judicial Administration, NYU School of Law; and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In 2004, Edwards received the Robert J. Kutak Award, presented by the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar "to a person who meets the highest standards of professional responsibility and demonstrates substantial achievement toward increased understanding between legal education and the active practice of law." In 2011, Edwards was the recipient of the Inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Michigan Law School.

Personal life

Edwards and his wife, Pamela Carrington, were married in 2000. He has a son, Brent, who is a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, a daughter, Michelle, and four grandchildren.

Select publications

Harry T. Edwards, Linda A. Elliott, Marin Levy, Federal Standards of Review (ThomsonReuters 2013).

Harry T. Edwards, The National Academy of SciencesReport on Forensic Sciences: What it Means for the Bench and Bar, 51 JurimetricsJ. 1 (Summer 2010).

Harry T. Edwards, Pitfalls of Empirical Studies That Attempt to Understand the Factors Affecting Appellate Decisionmaking, 58 Duke L.J. 1895 (2009).

Harry T. Edwards, The Journey from Brown v. Board of Education to Grutter v. Bollinger: From Racial Assimilation to Diversity, 102 Mich.L. Rev. 944 (2004).

Harry T. Edwards, The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making, 151 U. Pa.L. Rev. 1639 (2003).

Harry T. Edwards, Race and the Judiciary, 20 Yale L. & Pol=y Rev. 325 (2002).

Harry T. Edwards, Reflections (On Law Review, Legal Education, Law Practice, and My Alma Mater), 100 Mich. L. Rev. 1999 (2002).

Harry T. Edwards, A New Vision for the Legal Profession, @ 72 N.Y.U. L. Rev.567 (1997).

Harry T. Edwards, To Err Is Human, But Not Always Harmless: When Should Legal Error Be Tolerated?, 70 N.Y.U. L. Rev.1167 (1995).

Harry T. Edwards, Personal Reflections on 30 Years of Legal Education for Minorities, 37 Mich.L. Quadrangle Notes 38 (Summer 1994).

Harry T. Edwards, The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession: A Postscript, 91 Mich. L. Rev.2191 (1993).

Harry T. Edwards, The Growing Disjunction Between Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34 (1992).

Harry T. Edwards, A Lawyer’s Duty to Serve the Public Good, 65 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1148 (1990).

Harry T. Edwards, Judicial Review of Labor Arbitration Awards: The Clash Between the Public Policy Exception and the Duty to Bargain, 64 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 3 (1988).

Harry T. Edwards, Alternative Dispute Resolution:Panacea or Anathema?, 99 Harv. L. Rev. 668 (1986).

Harry T. Edwards, Deferral to Arbitration and Waiver of the Duty to Bargain: A Possible Way Out of Everlasting Confusion at the NLRB, 46Ohio St. L.J. 23 (1985).

Harry T. Edwards, The Emerging Duty to Bargain in thePublic Sector, 71 Mich. L. Rev.885 (1973).

[ Source: Wikipedia ]