James M. Nabrit, III, prominent civil rights lawyer, died at the age of 80 on March 22, 2013 in Bethesda, MD, after a brief illness. Nabrit, a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), under Thurgoood Marshall, was well known as a "Lawyer's Lawyer" amongst civil rights attorneys. He was recognized for his storied legal accomplishments as a litigator on some of the most important civil rights cases of his era. Over three decades, he argued frequently before the US Supreme Court and represented the famous and the infamous from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to death row inmates. Born on June 11, 1932 in Houston, TX, he was the only child of Norma and James M. Nabrit, Jr, former president of Howard University and one of the principal lawyers in the five desegregation cases argued under the banner of Brown vs. Board of Education. He was a boy when his parents moved to Washington, DC and attended segregated public schools until the 11th grade when he was enrolled in the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts. After high school, he graduated from Bates College in Maine. After graduating from Yale Law School, Nabrit worked for an African American law firm in Washington, DC, before serving two years in the US Army. Soon after completing his military service, he moved to New York and began his LDF career which ended with his retirement as LDF's Deputy Director in 1989. In 1956, Nabrit married Roberta Jacqueline "Jackie" Harlan. They were inseparable, supportive and devoted partners until Jackie's death in 2008.

Services will be held on Monday, April 1, 2013 at Dunbarton Chapel, Howard University School of Law, 2900 Van Ness St., NW, Washington, DC.

Complete obituary published in The Washington Post on March 29, 2013