The Young Lawyer

Ethel Kennedy was there with four children. Rose Kennedy was there. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was there with her son Bobby. Jean Kennedy Smith was there. Senator Teddy Kennedy was there with his wife Joan. And Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was there with a mink hat. In fact, the Kennedys outnumbered the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, who also showed up. They had come to see a young lawyer named Bobby Kennedy plead his first case in any court.

At the University of Virginia Law School, Bobby graduated 56th in a class of 125. Later, he did book work for a while with the Justice Department's criminal division, went on to make a name for himself as chief counsel of the Senate's labor-investigating McClellan Committee, was named U.S. Attorney General by his older brother. Now it seemed time to go to court.

Bobby did not pick himself an easy case as a starter. He appeared as amicus curiae in Saunders v. Gray, an immensely complicated case in which Georgia's county unit voting system is challenged. That system which was overturned last year by a lower court, gives nearly eight times as much weight to rural votes as it does to urban votes. It hands control of the legislature to back-country princelings, often assures the election of wool-hat Governors, and, incidentally, minimizes the Negro vote, which is concentrated in the cities.

Before Bobby got around to arguing against the county unit system, he undertook the pleasant task of presenting Senator Teddy for admission to the bar of the Supreme Court. Finally he got down to business. Clad in the customary morning coat and striped pants, he addressed the Justices: "May it please the Court . . ." At first he seemed nervous, even while reading from the brief prepared for him by Solicitor General Archibald Cox and Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall. But as he went on he gained confidence, delivered a firm, finger-jabbing appeal, answered a few gentle questions from the Justices, and concluded his argument in 27 of the 30 minutes that he had been allotted.

Said Bobby afterwards: "I'm happy that's over." As far as the decision was concerned, that was up to the Justices--but there would have been no doubt about the outcome if it had been left up to the jury of Kennedys present.

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