NEW YORK -- Whitney North Seymour Sr., a champion of civil liberties who was a member of President Herbert Hoover's administration and the 84th president of the American Bar Association, died Saturday. He was 82.
Seymour, who lived in Manhattan, died of cancer at St. Luke's Hospital, officials said.
Until his death, he had been an active partner in the New York City law firm of Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett, where he was made a partner in 1929.
Throughout more than half a century of law practice, he specialized in trial litigation and was known for his advocacy of civil liberties and unpopular causes.
In the 1930's, Seymour defended a young black Communist, Angelo Herndon, convicted of violating Georgia's anti-insurrection law, largely because he had Communist literature in his room. Seymour won an appeal of the conviction in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937.
Seymour served as president of the American Arbitration Association, the Legal Aid Society, the City Bar Association and president of the American Bar Association from 1953 to 1955. He was ABA chairman in 1960.
Born in Chicago, he was educated in public schools in Madison, Wis. and the University of Wisconsin. He graduated from Columbia University Law School in 1923.
From 1931 to 1933, he served as assistant solicitor general in the Justice Department and later as special assistant attorney general in New York.
In addition, he taught law at New York University Law School and Yale University's School of Law and was an official of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of Freedom House.
He is survived by his sons Whitney North Seymour Jr. and Thaddeus Seymour, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Grace Episcopal Church in Manhattan.
