# Last Supreme Court justice that didn't go to law school?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 20, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284 "2006-10-20T21:36:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284/1 "2006-10-20T21:36:50Z")

</div>

Who was the last member of the United States Supreme Court who _didn’t_ go to law school? At one time the norm was for aspiring lawyers to clerk in the offices of an experianced lawyer and then take the bar. Has a non-lawyer ever served on the court?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284/2 "2006-10-20T21:46:15Z")

</div>

[Henry Billings Brown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Billings_Brown) never got a law degree, although he went to law school. Does that count?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284/3 "2006-10-20T21:58:02Z")

</div>

[James F. Byrnes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_F._Byrnes) never attended high school, college or law school. He was admitted to the bar in 1903 after apprenticing to a lawyer. He was a Supreme Court Justice in 1941-42.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284/4 "2006-10-20T22:00:58Z")

</div>

The Wikipedia article on [Stanley Forman Reed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Forman_Reed) says:

> [@](#):
>
> He was the last person to serve as a Supreme Court Justice without possessing a law degree.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-supreme-court-justice-that-didnt-go-to-law-school/377284/5 "2006-10-21T03:35:05Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Giles]  
The Wikipedia article on [Stanley Forman Reed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Forman_Reed) says:  
[/QUOTE]

Reed was a justice from 1938 to 1957, incidentally. He died in 1980.