John Paul Stevens

John Paul Stevens, born in 1920, American jurist, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born in Chicago, he was educated at the University of Chicago. Stevens served in the U.S. Navy before earning a law degree at Northwestern University. He served (1947-1948) as clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge, then spent some years in private practice. Stevens lectured on antitrust law at Northwestern and the University of Chicago and was a partner in a Chicago law firm. In 1970 he was appointed a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago by President Richard M. Nixon. In November 1975 President Gerald R. Ford nominated him to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by the retirement of William O. Douglas. A moderately conservative Republican, Stevens is well regarded as a legal scholar.