Historical Faculty

Biggs was on the faculty of the Trinity College School of Law for one year, as one facet of a long career that included not only practicing and teaching law but involvement with judicial and political endeavors.  Biggs graduated from the University of North Carolina summa cum laude in 1893 with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy.  He entered the study of law at UNC the next year and was admitted to the bar.  In 1898 Biggs was appointed assistant professor of law at UNC and in 1899 became acting dean of the law school.  He led the effort to organize a state bar association. Biggs drafted a constitution and by-laws and served as the new association’s first secretary and treasurer.  He represented Durham County in the State House of Representatives and was elected as a judge on the North Carolina superior court from the Ninth Judicial District.  Biggs resigned from the bench in 1911 to join the law faculty at Trinity College.  However the next year he left the college and moved to Raleigh to be the floor manager for Woodrow Wilson at the State Democratic Convention.  Biggs went on to be a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General on two occasions, served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1933 to 1935, and a federally-appointed trustee of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company.  He retired in 1950 and died at his home in Raleigh in 1960.

Sources:

Bennett L. Steelman, Biggs, James Crawford, NCPedia.org [perma.cc/3S4L-8E69] (last viewed Apil 22, 2015)

Biographical Information, James Crawford Biggs Papers, 1893-1960, The Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC University Libraries [perma.cc/M5FR-MQ9M] (last viewed April 22, 2015)

Trinity College (Durham, N.C.), Annual Catalogue of Trinity College [serial]