Coleman Hicks was born in
Columbus, Ohio, and raised in
Mason City, Iowa. Hicks was educated at
Princeton University, receiving his
B.A. in 1965.
Bill Bradley, whom Hicks had met at a conference of
high school students involved with
student government, was one of Hicks' roommates at Princeton. After Princeton, Hicks enrolled at
Yale Law School, graduating in 1968. In 1969, Hicks joined the
Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy. In summer 1971, he was posted as an instructor at the
Naval Justice School in
Newport, Rhode Island, but he left this position after only a few weeks when he became personal assistant to
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. (He was recommended by Kissinger's previous personal assistant, David Halperin, who was a friend of Hicks' from the Navy.) In June 1972, a week before the second of the
Watergate burglaries, Hicks left his post as Kissinger's personal assistant to join the
law firm of
Covington & Burling. There, he was a general
litigator and participated in a wide variety of cases. In 1979,
President of the United States Jimmy Carter nominated Hicks as
General Counsel of the Navy and, after
Senate confirmation, Hicks held this office from May 25, 1979, until January 13, 1981. After leaving government service in 1981, Hicks returned to Covington & Burling, where he practiced law for the next fourteen years. One of the highlights of his legal career came in 1987, when he wrote the winning brief in the case of
Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (484 U.S. 260 (1988)). ==Death==