Herschel H. Friday was an Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 bond lawyer whom President Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 considered appointing to the United States Supreme Court. After the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

 felt Friday's nomination was too controversial due to his firm's representation of the Little Rock School District throughout the 1957 Central High School Crisis, Nixon nominated Lewis Powell

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He developed a reputation as a judicial moderate, and was known as a master of compromise and consensus-building. He was also widely well regarded by contemporaries due to his personal good manners and...

 instead.

During Nixon's first term, three associate justices resigned from the Supreme Court. The first vacancy was created by the resignation of Abe Fortas

Abe Fortas

Abraham Fortas was a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice from 1965 to 1969. Originally from Tennessee, Fortas became a law professor at Yale, and subsequently advised the Securities and Exchange Commission. He then worked at the Interior Department under Franklin D...

. The United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 rejected Nixon's first two nominees for that vacancy, Clement F. Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. Nixon then nominated Harry A. Blackmun, who was confirmed.

Justices John Harlan

John Marshall Harlan II

John Marshall Harlan was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. His namesake was his grandfather John Marshall Harlan, another associate justice who served from 1877 to 1911.Harlan was a student at Upper Canada College and Appleby College and...

 and Hugo Black

Hugo Black

Hugo Lafayette Black was an American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971. Black was nominated to the Supreme...

 announced their retirements in 1971. In spite of the rejections of Haynsworth and Carswell, Nixon strongly considered nominating Friday and California state Appeals Judge Mildred Lillie

Mildred Lillie

Mildred Lillie was a California judge whom President Richard Nixon seriously considered for the Supreme Court of the United States in 1971...

 to the high court. Friday was a former member of the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

 Board of Delegates; Lillie was a judge on an intermediate state appellate court in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. After the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

 rated both Friday and Lillie as "not qualified," Nixon instead nominated Lewis Powell

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.

Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He developed a reputation as a judicial moderate, and was known as a master of compromise and consensus-building. He was also widely well regarded by contemporaries due to his personal good manners and...

 and William H. Rehnquist, both of whom were successfully confirmed.

Friday returned to his Arkansas law firm, Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP, one of the oldest, largest, and long-standing law firms in the state. Friday would later be a benefactor of Governor and President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. Friday died on March 1, 1994 in an aviation accident.