Phillip Forman

Judge Forman (r) awards Albert Einstein his certificate of American citizenship on October 1, 1940.

Phillip Forman (November 30, 1895 – August 17, 1978) was an American lawyer and judge.

Early life and career

Forman was born into a Jewish family on November 30, 1895, in New York City. He served in the United States Navy during World War I (1917–1919) and received his LL.B. from Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia in 1919.

After joining the bar, Forman practiced law privately in Trenton, New Jersey. After a few years, he joined the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey (1923), and was thereafter appointed as the U.S. Attorney by President Calvin Coolidge, serving from 1928 until his appointment to the bench in 1932.

District court judgeship

Forman was nominated by President Herbert Hoover on June 11, 1932, to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey vacated by William Nelson Runyon. It was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 23, 1932, and Forman received his commission on June 25, 1932. In 1940, Judge Forman gave the German physicist Albert Einstein his U.S. Citizenship. He served the same role for the mathematician Kurt Gödel.

Forman served as chief judge of the district from 1951 until his elevation to an appellate judgeship in 1959.

Appellate judgeship

Forman was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on February 9, 1959, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated by Albert Branson Maris. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 9, 1959, and received his commission the following day. Forman assumed senior status on March 31, 1961, serving in that capacity until his death on August 17, 1978.

References

• Phillip Forman at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.