Thomas Walter Swan was a longtime Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...

.

Swan was born and raised in Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, and attended Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

. He then practiced law in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 from 1903 to 1916, when he became the Dean and a professor at Yale Law School

Yale Law School

Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...

. In 1926, President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...

 nominated Swan to be a Judge of the Second Circuit. (Swan's predecessor in his judgeship, Henry Wade Rogers

Henry Wade Rogers

Henry Wade Rogers was a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1913 to 1926.-Biography:...

, had also been Dean of Yale Law School.)

Swan served on the Second Circuit as an active judge until 1953 and was the Chief Judge

Chief judge

Chief Judge is a title that can refer to the highest-ranking judge of a court that has more than one judge. The meaning and usage of the term vary from one court system to another...

 from 1951 to 1953. Swan was highly regarded as a judge and served on an eminent bench that also included Learned Hand

Learned Hand

Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...

, Augustus Hand

Augustus Noble Hand

Augustus Noble Hand was an American judge who served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. His most notable rulings restricted the reach of obscenity statutes in the areas of literature and...

, Charles Clark

Charles Edward Clark

Charles Edward Clark was a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1939 to 1963. A native of Connecticut, Clark attended Yale College and Yale Law School...

, and Jerome Frank. In 1953, Swan took "senior status" on the court, which he retained until his death in 1975 at the age of 97.