In this extraordinary oral history, Theodore B. (“Ted”) Olson shares his recollections of the people and experiences that most profoundly influenced him, including his involvement in some of the most prominent and controversial cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in the last 40 years.
Ted Olson was born in 1940, the oldest of five children. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area but spent summers in Wisconsin with his grandparents at their cherry orchard and dairy farm and general store. Olson’s father was an engineer with United Airlines and his mother taught at a community college after earning a Masters Degree in Literature.
Olson attended college in the late 1950s at the University of the Pacific, where he started as a Math major but switched to double major in Speech and History due to an “inspirational teacher”, Paul Winters. Winters was the debate coach, who trained the team in a range of skills, from oratory to extemporaneous speaking, and from interpretive reading to salesmanship. According to Olson, Winters altered the trajectory of his future.
In 1962, Olson enrolled at Boalt Hall at the University of California at Berkley and then joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s Los Angeles office in 1965. With the support of his mentor William French Smith, Olson began doing legal work for the Reagan family, and later was appointed to the California Commission on Uniform State Laws when Ronald Regan became governor of California in 1967. When Reagan became President in 1981, Olson came to Washington as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, advising the White House and Executive Branch.
After leaving government service, Olson returned to private practice at Gibson Dunn, where he argued before the Supreme Court on multiple occasions, including on behalf of George W. Bush in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore regarding the 2000 presidential election. President Bush appointed Olson as Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held from 2001 to 2004. Olson returned to private practice at Gibson Dunn for the remainder of his career but remained a frequent advocate before the Supreme Court. Among many other high-profile cases during this period, Olson recounts his involvement in the successful attack against Proposition 8 in California, which would have changed the California Constitution to prohibit same sex marriage.
Throughout his oral history, Olson discusses at length the important procedural, substantive and strategic issues of his most significant cases, as well as the controversy and legacy of those cases.
Olson passed away on November 13, 2024. You can read the full oral history HERE.