As President Obama ponders whom he will nominate as Eric Holder’s successor as attorney general, he should consider President Ford’s appointment in 1975 of Edward Levi to head the nation’s Department of Justice.

Four decades ago, the United States was reeling from Watergate. President Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, was on his way to federal prison while Ford’s pardon of Nixon remained controversial.

In this difficult environment, President Ford reached outside his official and personal circles to appoint as attorney general a preeminent legal scholar, Edward Levi.

Levi was a distinguished law professor, an accomplished dean of the University of Chicago Law School, and the widely-admired president of the University of Chicago. In a contentious political setting, Edward Levi was confirmed as attorney general by a voice vote in the United States Senate. Everyone understood that Ford had gone beyond politics as usual to choose an outstanding attorney general capable of restoring confidence in the Department of the Justice.

Ed Levi didn’t need the job. But the United States needed Ed Levi.

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