Early Years and Legal Career
Craig was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the son of William Gregory Craig, a university educator, former associate dean of students at Stanford University, president of several universities and colleges, and first Director of Training for the Peace Corps, who died in 2005. Greg Craig's mother, Mary Lois (née Bestor), was attentive to four boys, two of whom had learning disabilities; she worked with them endlessly; one is now a teacher and the other is a medical doctor. Lois also owned a bookstore in the Craigs' hometown of Middlebury, Vermont.
Greg Craig went to Philips Exeter Academy, then graduated in the class of 1967 of Harvard (where he sang in the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes). While an undergraduate, Greg gave leadership to and was a major fundraiser for Harlem Prep, organized to create academic opportunities at the highest level. During this time Greg also traveled to South Africa with Allard K. Lowenstein, to declare common cause with those seeking an end to racist policies. Greg and Al Lowenstein, joined by Bill Clinton and others, were instrumental in beginning the student opposition to the war in Vietnam. Lowenstein said at that time: "Either Bill or Greg could some day be President of the United States." Following Harvard Craig won the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholarship to Emmanuel College at Cambridge University. He received his J.D. in 1972 from Yale Law School, where he met Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.
Craig's first employment following law school was with the Washington-based law firm Williams & Connolly, and he was a partner with the firm before becoming President Obama's counsel. His previous year's income, in a 2009 report, was a salary of $1.7 million from the firm, where he was reported to have been a partner since 1999.
Read more about this topic: Greg Craig
Famous quotes containing the words early, years, legal and/or career:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It’s better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they’re 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?”
—Fran Lebowitz (20th century)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)