Philip Elman

Philip Elman (born 14 March 1918, Paterson, New Jersey; died 30 November 1999, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Washington, D.C.) was an American lawyer at the United States Department of Justice and former member of the Federal Trade Commission. He is best known for writing the government's brief in Brown v. Board of Education.

Early life

Elman was born in Paterson, New Jersey to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents who worked in the silk industry. During the Great Depression, he moved with his family to New York City, where he attended DeWitt Clinton High School and the City College of New York. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review in 1938 and 1939.

Legal career

Judicial clerkships

Elman began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Calvert Magruder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, 1939-1940. After a brief stint at the Federal Communications Commission (1940–1941), he served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter from 1941 to 1943. Among the opinions Elman was involved in drafting during his clerkship was Frankfurter's dissent in the second Flag Salute case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Elman and Frankfurter remained fast friends; Elman would later recount that Frankfurter still regarded him as his clerk for years after Elman had joined the Justice Department.