If retired Judge David S. Tatel had to pick the one factor that was responsible for his success it would be the series of phenomenal mentors he had along the way.
July 01, 2024 Mentors
Judge David S. Tatel on the key to his success
In a wide-ranging discussion with his former law clerk, Associate Justice Goodwin Liu of the California Supreme Court, in the webinar “Pursuing Justice and Embracing Challenges: Judge David S. Tatel’s Journey,” the judge who served 30 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit looked back on his career “trying to use the law to improve people’s lives.”
As detailed in his recently released life story “Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice,” Tatel’s initial inspiration was a 1963 meeting of some 250 lawyers in the White House convened by President John F. Kennedy to enlist their participation in the Civil Rights Movement. The meeting resulted in the founding of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
That would spur Tatel to serve as the executive director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he met his “maybe the most important” mentor, Louis Oberdorfer. “I wanted to be like Lou Oberdorfer when I grew up,” Tatel said of the distinguished lawyer who had clerked for Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and worked on civil rights cases at the Justice Department in the early 1960s, even as he worked in the Tax Division. They eventually served together on the D.C. Circuit Court, which Tatel said was “an extraordinary capstone for me.”
Tatel said his mentor “believed that lawyers had a responsibility beyond serving their paying clients” to make the law work for everyone.
The retired judge urged young lawyers to look for an organization where they can find “mentors that can help you throughout your career” and help them understand the law.
Tatel also spoke of losing his sight as a teenager, how he dealt with blindness early in his career and all the adaptive technology (and the guide dog) available to him now. He said he hopes that his book “will be the role model for blind people” that he never had.