Herschel Whitfield Arant

Who was Herschel Whitfield Arant?

Herschel Whitfield Arant was a noted 20th-century U.S. legal academic and jurist.

Born in Church Hill, Alabama, Arant received a B.S. from the University of Alabama in 1910. He went on to receive a B.A. from Yale University in 1911, an M.A. from Yale two years later, and an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1915.

Arant was in private practice of law in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1915 to 1920, but quickly became involved in academia. He was a professor of law at the Lamar School of Law in Emory University in 1916, and switch to Yale where he was an assistant professor from 1920 to 1922. He was then made a full professor and dean of the law school at the University of Kansas, and then moved to hold the same positions at Ohio State University from 1928 to 1939.

On February 9, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Arant to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 21, and received his commission on March 4. He served until his death two years later.