I did well in law school and was actively recruited by law firms in
Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. However, Memphis attorney Lucius
E. Burch, Jr., convinced me that I should return to Memphis, where I
could make a more significant contribution to the community. He argued
that a lawyer had an obligation to do more than making a living--that he
should be of service to society in a broader sense. Memphis and the South
generally were entering a risky period of transition in relations between
the races during the mid-1960s. I didn't need much convincing. I came
home.

After helping to coordinate President Kennedy's 1960 campaign on the
Virginia state campuses, I returned to Memphis, Tennessee, and Southern
politics. In 1969, I helped found the L. Q. C. Lamar Society, a group that
attempted to provide some direction for a rapidly changing and developing
South. Through that work, I met a quietly impressive Georgia politician,
Jimmy Carter. The Lamar Society was transformed into the Southern
Growth Policies Board, a nonpartisan, multistate agency for which Sen-
ator Terry Sanford, then President of Duke University, arranged funding
from the legislatures of the Southern states. Back in Memphis, I became
Chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party and was elected an at-
large member of the City Council. I was especially proud that my support
in the council race cut across the class and racial boundaries that seemed
to divide Memphis on many issues and allowed me to carry almost every
box in the city.

I served on the National Steering Committee for presidential candidate
Carter and headed his effort in western Tennessee. President Carter ap-
pointed me U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee. In ad-
dition to exposing me to an entirely new role in government, my office
prosecuted politicians and public officials during the post-Watergate era
when under-the-table practices of long standing became the focus of fed-
eral investigation and enforcement. My interest in ethics also helped me
keep one foot in academia: I was an Adjunct Professor of Professional
Ethics at the Memphis State University School of Law.

After completing my term as U.S. Attorney, I ran for Mayor of Mem-
phis. I lost, in part, because the racially diverse support I expected dis-
appeared. The times had changed since my council race, and the Memphis
vote reflected almost complete racial polarization.

The Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court then appointed me At-
torney General for the State of Tennessee. In that position, I saw new
aspects of the same ethical dilemmas that I had experienced in the earlier
roles of party chairman, municipal legislator, mayoral candidate, and U.S.
Attorney. It gave me yet another perspective on the difficult choices that
public officials must make in the conduct of their jobs. I resigned from
the Attorney General's post in September 1988 to return to the private
practice of law. I had always promised I would not borrow money in

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