J. Michael Luttig

Jurist / Lawyer / Business Personality

J. Michael Luttig was a U.S. federal judge once considered a prime candidate to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Luttig graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1976 and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1981. He worked briefly as an assistant counsel in the administration of Ronald Reagan, and later clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger and for Antonin Scalia (before Scalia sat on the Supreme Court). Luttig became a judge on the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1991, appointed by President George Bush the elder. By the time George W. Bush was in the White House, Luttig was known as an opponent of so-called judicial activism and a rising star in conservative politics. Like Samuel Alito and John G. Roberts, Jr., he became newsworthy in 2005 with the announcent that Justice O'Connor was retiring. To the surprise of many, Luttig quit the bench in 2006 and went to work as general counsel and executive vice president for the Boeing Company.

Extra credit: Luttig became a prime candidate to replace Justice O'Connor in 2005 after the failed nomination of Harriet Miers by President George Bush the younger in 2005... Luttig's hometown of Tyler, Texas is also the birthplace of actor Dooley Wilson, who played Sam in the movie Casablanca... Luttig's father, John Luttig, was shot and killed during a carjacking in Texas in 1994. His killer, Napoleon Beazley, was executed in 2002.

Another prominent candidate to replace Justice O'Connor is Edith Brown Clement.