Ted Olson, Former Solicitor General and Gibson Partner, Dies (1)

Former US Solicitor General and longtime Gibson Dunn partner Ted Olson, who went on to defend gay marriage rights, died Wednesday.

Olson, 84, served as the government’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court during the George W. Bush administration and argued 65 cases before the justices during his career. He argued for Bush in the case that cinched him the 2000 presidential election over Al Gore and successfully fought against a California ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.

“Ted was a titan of the legal profession and one of the most extraordinary and eloquent advocates of our time,” Gibson Dunn chair and managing partner Barbara Becker said in a release announcing Olson’s death. No cause was stated, but one friend said Olson’s death came as a surprise.

“He was creative, principled, and fearless—a trailblazing advocate who cared about all people,” she said.

Working with a No. 2 pencil and yellow legal pad, former colleagues say Olson had an incredible ability to distill complicated records, statutes, and precedents down to one or two sentences that captured a case’s essence for oral argument.

“This is a measure that walls off the institution of marriage, which is not society’s right,” Olson said during the arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry over the gay marriage ban in California.

“It’s an individual right that this Court again and again and again has said the right to get married, the right to have the relationship of marriage is a personal right. It’s a part of the right of privacy, association, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he said.

Friend and Gibson Dunn partner Ted Boutrous pointed to that appearance in speaking of Olson’s unparalleled talent and skill in written and oral advocacy.

“He’s the greatest lawyer I’ve ever worked with,” said Boutrous, who became one of the “The Two Teds,” the podcast he produced with Olson where they discussed major cases and the art of lawyering.

“I was little Ted and he was big Ted,” Boutrous said.

GOP Stalwart

Born in Chicago and raised in California, Olson earned his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Gibson Dunn in 1965 and worked in its Los Angeles and Washington offices. He left the firm twice—to serve as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan administration and then as solicitor general from 2001-2004.

For someone who was so identified with the Republican Party to defend gay marriage was jaw-dropping at the time, said American University Washington College of Law professor Elizabeth Earle Beske, of Olson’s argument in Hollingsworth.

“No one changed the culture zeitgeist on gay marriage more than Ted Olson,” she said.

But Beske, who spent 18 hours talking with Olson over several years to complete an oral history of his life and career for the Historical Society of the DC Circuit, said Olson absolutely loved a legal challenge and competition. It’s why, she said, he took on former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s Supreme Court fight to legalize sports betting in 2017.

“It’s not a ridiculously sexy case for the news media but that sort of exemplifies Ted,” Beske said. “It was a dead loser in court, after court, after court, and he takes it and is like ‘I can win that.’”

In addition to marriage equality and the high-profile cases stemming from the 2000 presidential election, Olson also successfully challenged the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and twice received the Justice Department’s highest award for public service and leadership.

Tragic Loss

Olson’s first wife, Barbara, died in the 9/11 attacks. Barbara, 45, a conservative legal analyst, was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She called Ted to tell him the plane was being hijacked.

“We talked about what possibly she could do to solve the problem,” Olson told NBC in an interview days later. “There was no sense of panic in her voice.”

Though Barbara had planned to take a flight to California the night before, Olson said she decided to leave that Tuesday morning instead to wish him a happy birthday.

“She had left him something on his pillow,” Beske remembered Olson telling her. “She had left him some like ‘I love you’ message that he woke to.”

On social media, Paul Weiss Partner Kannon Shanmugam said Olson was a “role model in the way he conducted himself after his unimaginable loss.”

“I owe everything to him, and I will miss him so,” Shanmugam said.

Olson found love again in Lady Booth Olson, whom he married in 2006 and with whom he had a storybook relationship, Boutrous said.

A wine connoisseur who enjoyed going out to dinner, Olson was known as a social person. For many years he hosted a Federalist Society summer party at his Great Falls, Virginia, home.

“He was so impressive, but he was so warm,” said Perkins Coie partner Michael Huston, who first met Olson as a summer associate at Gibson Dunn’s Los Angeles office in 2010. He then worked closely with him at the firm in Washington.

“He loved working with young lawyers and always made you feel like he was interested in you and what you wanted out of your career,” he said.

Olson is survived by his wife and two children from his first marriage.