Paul R. Webber III

Paul R. Webber III was born on January 24, 1934 in Gadsden, South Carolina. He spent his formative years in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where his father was a professor of economics and his mother a professor of science education at South Carolina State University (SCSU).

Mr. Webber earned a B.A. in 1955 and a J.D. in 1957 from SCSU. He then practiced law in Columbia, South Carolina, where he taught business law at Allen University. In 1959 he moved to Los Angeles, California, and was employed as an assistant law librarian at the UCLA Law School. The following year, he was hired by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co. (Golden State) as its associate legal counsel. He later entered private practice in Los Angeles with Golden State as a major client.

In 1964, Mr. Webber returned to the East Coast, where he was appointed to the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC. His work at the Department of Justice involved the motion picture industry and, for the next three years, he appeared frequently before courts in Los Angeles and New York.

Enticed to become a soldier in the war on poverty during the turbulent 1960's, Mr. Webber joined the Neighborhood Legal Services Program (NLSP) as a managing attorney in 1967. Through his work at NLSP, Mr. Webber met lawyers William S. Thompson and Frederick Evans who invited him to join their law firm, Thompson, Evans & Dolphin, in 1969. The firm was expanding rapidly, and Wiley Branton, a friend of Mr. Webber's from his years at the Department of Justice, also was invited to become a member of the firm. Later that year, President Nixon appointed William S. Thompson to the bench of the District of Columbia Superior Court. In 1977, President Carter appointed Paul Webber III to the same bench. And in 1978, Wiley Branton left the firm to become Dean of the Howard University Law School.

Judge Webber served on the Superior Court from 1977 to 1998, when he retired and took senior status. His assignments included the civil, criminal, and family divisions of the court; member or chairman of many committees; co-chair of the Civil Delay Reduction Project; and Presiding Judge of the Civil Division.

Judge Webber and his wife, Fay Webber, a retired elementary school teacher, have three children. Paul IV is a lawyer in Washington, D.C.; Stephen is an orthopedic surgeon in Mitchellville, MD; and Nikki is a television producer. She won Emmys in 2000 and 2001 for her work as coordinating producer of ABC Network's very successful show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

On January 1, 2000, Paul Webber III became general counsel of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (The Boule). He is a former national president of The Guardsmen, and remains active within that organization as well as with the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the National Bar Association. He serves on the boards of the Council for Court Excellence, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and The Boule Foundation. He was co-organizer of the Judicial Council of the Washington Bar Association and, in 2001, was admitted to membership in the National Association of Parliamentarians. In 2003, he published Enjoying the Journey: One Lawyer's Memoir.