Preferred Citation

Papers of Judge Thomas C. Gordon, Jr., MSS 04-1, Box Number, Special Collections, University of Virginia Law Library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The Justice Thomas C. Gordon Papers were donated to the Special Collections Department of the Law Library in March 2004 by the law firm of McGuire Woods.

Biographical / Historical

Thomas Christian Gordon, Jr. was born in Richmond, Virginia, on 14 July 1915. His parents were Thomas Christian Gordon and Ruth Nelson (Robins). He attended the University of Virginia, receiving his B.A. in 1936 and his LL. B. from the Law School in 1938. Gordon was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1937. From 1938-1940, he was an associate for the Richmond law firm of Parrish, Butcher & Parrish; from 1940-1965 and 1972-1983 he was an associate and partner of the law firm of McGuire, Woods and Battle, where his specialty was business law, and he was president of the Virginia Bar Association from 1963-1964. In 1965, he was nominated as an associate justice of what is now the Supreme Court of Virginia.

Justice Gordon was a lecturer at the University of Virginia Law School (1970-1972) and at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law (1979-1981). As a student at Virginia Law School, he was part of the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review . He was trustee and president of the Crippled Childrens Hospital of Richmond. He was part of the Fellow American Bar Foundation and a member of the American Bar Association. He retired from the law in 1981 and pursued his love to paint, took lessons at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and became an accomplished artist. He died May 17, 2003.

Scope and Contents

This collection contains notebooks, memoranda and correspondence with between Judge Gordon and the University of Virginia School of Law, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, the Virginia Law Review and the law firm of McGuire Woods. The use of language is a recurrent topic in this collection. There are extensive articles and newspaper clippings about the use of plain English and legal writing, as well as a collection of Gordon's speeches and notes.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Gordon, Thomas C., Jr., 1915-2003
• Judges
• Law -- Language
• Law -- Study and teaching
• Painting, American
• University of Virginia. School of Law