Topic: Griffin Bell

Griffin Boyette Bell (October 31, 1918 – January 5, 2009) was an American lawyer and former Attorney General. He served as the nation's 72nd Attorney General during the Jimmy Carter administration. He was an attorney with the law firm King & Spalding.

Bell was born in Americus, Georgia, He attended several public schools before enrolling at the Georgia Southwestern College and then at the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. During World War II, Bell served in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps from 1942 to 1946. Bell served as city attorney of Warner Robins, Georgia while still in school. He practiced law at King & Spalding in Georgia from 1948 to 1961. He returned to the firm before and after his service as the United States Attorney General. Bell handled many high profile cases after leaving office, such as the internal investigation concerning the cash management practices of E. F. Hutton & Co..

President John F. Kennedy appointed Bell, who had been the co-chairman of Kennedy's presidential campaign in Georgia, to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1961. He served for more than fourteen years on the Fifth Circuit. He often played an instrumental role in mediating disputes between the court's factions during the peak of the American Civil Rights Movement.