Laurence Silberman

Laurence Hirsch Silberman (October 12, 1935 – October 2, 2022) was an American jurist and diplomat who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1985 until his death. He was appointed in October 1985 by President Ronald Reagan and took senior status on November 1, 2000. On June 11, 2008, President George W. Bush awarded Silberman the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early life and education Silberman was born in 1935 to a Jewish family in York, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1957. After serving six months of active duty in the US Army (five-and-a-half years in reserve), he attended Harvard Law School and graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Laws degree. Career Silberman worked as a partner at the law firms Moore, Silberman & Schulze in Honolulu and Morrison & Foerster and Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. He also served as Executive Vice President of Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. He also worked as an attorney in the National Labor Relations Board's appellate section, as Solicitor of Labor from 1969 to 1970, and as Undersecretary of Labor from 1970 to 1973. As Solicitor, he was largely responsible for developing the requirement of goals and timetables as an enforcement device for the affirmative action order. He subsequently regretted his stance and wrote, "Our use of numerical standards in pursuit of equal opportunity has led to the very quotas guaranteeing equal results that we initially wished to avoid." He also led the development of legislation to implement "final offer selection" as a means of resolving labor disputes. As Undersecretary, he repeatedly clashed with Charles "Chuck" Colson and tendered his resignation to compel the hiring of a black regional director in New York in 1972.