The only person to serve both as president (1909-1913) and a justice, Taft was appointed as Chief Justice (1921-1930) by president Warren G. Harding.  As Chief, Taft is remembered more for innovations in Judicial administration than for a substantive legal agenda.  He successfully pressed congress to pass laws that gave the court almost unlimited discretion to decide which cases it will hear.

Judicial Career

• 1878 Graduated from Yale University
  
• 1880 Graduated Cincinnati Law School and admitted to the bar to practice law
  
• 1887-90 Judge of the superior court of Cincinnati
• 1890-92 Solicitor General of the United States
• 1892-1900 U.S. Circuit Judge
• 1896-1900 Professor and Dean of the Law Department of the University of Cincinnati
• 1913 Appointed Professor of Law at Yale University
• 1921-30 Chief Justice of the United States

The chief justice never allowed  personal opinions to influence him.  Although he had not favored prohibition, he stood for strict enforcement of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, which enforced prohibition.  For Taft, law was law, whether it worked or not.

In other decisions, Chief Justice Taft denied congressional efforts to force controls on child labor through taxation; He declared that the stockyards industry was national in scope and open to federal regulation; and carried through the president's right to remove executive appointees without the approval of the Senate.