PORTLAND – One of the most respected jurists in Maine and the nation is preparing to retire after 40 years on the federal bench.

Judge Frank M. Coffin, a Lewiston native, is one of the few people to ever serve in all three branches of the government. He was a congressman from Maine and deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development before he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. He is also credited, along with his friend and colleague the late Sen. Edmund Muskie, with rebuilding the Maine Democratic Party in the 1950s.

The South Portland resident announced his retirement in a letter to colleagues and former law clerks last month, and spent an hour last week discussing his experiences at his office in the federal courthouse in Portland.

Coffin, 86, plans to relinquish his judicial chambers a year from now, but will retain his status as a senior judge. He said he has a full agenda for his retirement: spending time with his family, working on his memoirs, and practicing his avocation as a carver in wood and soft stone.

Although Coffin works in Portland and lives in South Portland with his wife, Ruth, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit is based in Boston, where its judges hear arguments for several days each month and have appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. District Courts in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.

Coffin was born in 1919 in Lewiston. An only child, he was educated in Lewiston public schools, and then went to Bates College. After graduating from Bates he served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946. Then he earned degrees at both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar, came back to Lewiston and set up a successful law practice.

In the late 1940s, Coffin served on the Lewiston School Board. He became active in Democratic politics in the 1950s, when Maine was largely a one-party state. For most of the previous century, Republicans controlled both the Maine House and Senate. Under Coffin’s leadership, healthy two-party competition was kindled.

“Maine was excited to at last have competition between the parties,” Coffin said.

He was chairman of the Maine Democratic State Committee from 1954 to 1956.

“We were young men,” Coffin said. “Muskie was in the Legislature and I found myself making speeches critical of Democrats content to have just a few strongholds” in Biddeford, Waterville and Lewiston, he said. “I remember with fondness when we joked that we could hold rallies in phone booths. A little bit of money went a long way. TV was new. People had patience and would listen to a 10- to 15-minute speech. You could buy TV time for ridiculous prices. Raising money was not the all-engulfing problem it is now.”

Coffin was elected to Congress in 1956 and served two terms. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1960.

Coffin next became the managing director of the Development Loan Fund. President John F. Kennedy planned to appoint him as U.S. ambassador to Panama.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed Coffin not to Panama, but as deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the first U.S. foreign assistance organization focused on long-range economic and social development. Coffin was based in Paris, and served there in 1964 and 1965.

In 1965 there was a vacancy on the 1st Circuit. Muskie nominated Coffin, and Johnson appointed him. Coffin served as chief judge from 1972 to 1983 and currently serves as senior circuit judge. He has heard approximately 2,500 cases during his career.

“When I started out, we were allowed one law clerk,” Coffin said. “Things have expanded to the point where today you get four.”

As a senior judge, Coffin is back to having one clerk, which he called an advantage because he has more opportunity to work on opinions from start to finish. A very active judge with a full caseload must supervise his clerks, and “is deprived of some of the fun of putting on paper his thoughts. The current pace doesn’t allow that very often,” Coffin said.

“Forty years ago, my secretary had a typewriter and carbon paper, and we thought she was very modern. Technology has resulted in a tremendously increased volume of work that can be done.”

Reported by Lisa Holbrook of the Portland Forecaster

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