Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, a University of the Pacific alumnus who played a key role in deciding one of the nation’s closest presidential races and later helped pave the way for gay marriage in California, has died. He was 84.
Calling him a “once-in-a-generation lawyer,” Gibson Dunn, the law firm where Olson had served as a partner, announced his death Wednesday.
Olson graduated from UOP in 1962 and went on to law school at UC Berkeley.
“Ted Olson was one of the most influential attorneys of our time, and one of our greatest Pacificans,” UOP President Christopher Callahan said in a statement. “He always talked with great affection about his Pacific years and how the debate team gave him the confidence to pursue his legal career.”
Over a career spanning six decades, Olson argued 65 cases in front of the Supreme Court, Gibson Dunn said. One of the most famous was Bush v. Gore, in which the razor-tight 2000 presidential contest wound up before the high court, ultimately being decided in favor of Bush.
Olson also was involved in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a 2010 case that has had a lasting impact on campaign contributions.
Under Bush, Olson was Solicitor General from 2001 to 2004.
Though known for arguing on behalf of conservatives in more politically driven cases, Olson in later years took up the fight to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage in 2008 in an unusual union with another superstar attorney, David Boies, his former adversary in Bush v. Gore.
“It is the right of individuals, not an indulgence to be dispensed by the state,” Olson argued. “The right to marry, to choose to marry, has never been tied to procreation.”
Showing his range as an attorney, Olson also represented then-New England Patriot Tom Brady against a suspension over allegations he used an underinflated football to help win games in the “Deflategate” scandal of 2016.
Olson’s life took a tragic turn when his third wife, conservative legal analyst Barbara Olson, died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. She was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon.
In the university’s statement on Ted Olson’s death, UOP mentioned how he had said much of his belief in fairness and liberty rose from his time at the Stockton university.
“Pacific fostered an environment that placed an emphasis on individual liberties and opportunities,” Olson said in a 2020 interview with Callahan as part of a speaker series.
Olson was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.
“Ted was a titan of the legal profession and one of the most extraordinary and eloquent advocates of our time,” said Barbara Becker, chair and managing partner at Gibson Dunn. “He was creative, principled, and fearless.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.