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Coffin, Frank (1919 - 2009)

Genre: Non-Fiction

Legislator, judge and author Frank Morey Coffin was born in Lewiston, ME. He was educated in Lewiston public schools, graduated from Bates College in 1940, from Harvard Business School in 1943, and Harvard Law School in 1947. He served as an ensign, later promoted to lieutenant, in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater from 1943-1946. After the war, he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Lewiston, Maine. He was chairman of the Maine Democratic State committee 1954-1956 and elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth Congresses (January 3, 1957-January 3, 1961). He was the managing director of the Development Loan Fund until October 1961 when he became deputy administrator of the Agency for International Development and served until 1964 when he was appointed to serve as United States Representative to Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France, 1964-1965. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, October 2, 1965, and served as chief judge of that court, 1972 to 1983, and assumed senior status, February 1, 1989. He was also chairman of the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch, 1984-1990.