Cecil F. Poole

Cecil Francis Poole (July 25, 1914 – November 12, 1997) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and a United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. He was the first African American to serve as a United States Attorney (outside of the United States Virgin Islands), the first African American to serve as a Judge of the Northern District of California and the second African American to serve as a Judge of the Ninth Circuit. Education and career Poole received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from the University of Michigan in 1935. He received a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Michigan Law School in 1938. Poole then received a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1939. After graduation from law school and gaining admission to the Pennsylvania State Bar in 1940, Poole entered the private practice of law in Pittsburgh. He remained in private practice from 1940 to 1942 and then moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the National Labor Relations Board. By then, World War II had begun. Shortly after moving to the nation's capital Poole joined the military, serving in the United States Army, first as an enlistee and then as a commissioned officer, from 1942 to 1945. After World War II Poole served as Chief of the Regional Appellate Division of the United States Office of Price Administration in San Francisco, California from 1946 to 1947. He then re-entered the private practice of law in San Francisco in 1947 and continued in that work until 1951. Poole then became an assistant district attorney and chief of the San Francisco County Superior Court division staff of the district attorney's office, posts he held from 1951 to 1958, and also served as an Instructor for the Golden Gate University School of Law from 1952 to 1958.