Built by Association: Chief Justice Warren E. Burger

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s copy of Judges of the United States (1978), with bookplate.

Warren Earl Burger (1907-1995) was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1969 to 1986. A 1931 graduate of the St. Paul College of Law (now William Mitchell College of Law), Burger practiced with a noted law firm for the next 20 years, while also starting his career in Republican politics.

In 1952, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Burger Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division of the Justice Department. He represented the United States in several cases before the Supreme Court, including Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15 (1953). In 1956, Eisenhower named him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969.

In Rockville, Maryland, I found Chief Justice Burger’s copy of the useful deskbook Judges of the United States, which contains biographies of all the federal judges who had served by the time it was issued in 1978. It bears Burger’s bookplate inside the front cover.

          – Bryan A. Garner

“Built by Association: Books Once Owned by Notable Judges and Lawyers, from Bryan A. Garner’s Collection”, an exhibit curated by Bryan A. Garner with Mike Widener, is on display until December 16, 2013 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.