Warner Hodges, prominent Memphis attorney, died April 10, 2021, at his home in Germantown, Tennessee at the age of 99. He grew up in Memphis, graduating from Southwestern (now Rhodes College) with a major in Chemistry. While at Southwestern, he was President of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
In 1943, he enlisted in the United States Army and, because of his degree in Chemistry, was sent to the highly secret Army facility at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on the Manhattan Project in the development of the Atomic Bomb. For his essential work in contributing to the successful conclusion of World War II, he was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the then U.S. Secretary of War, Henry Stinson.
After the war, he attended Vanderbilt University School of Law on the GI bill, graduating in 1949. After a few years in private practice, he was appointed as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, and was later appointed as the U.S. District Attorney by President Eisenhower, where he served with distinction, prosecuting crime in Tennessee. His brilliance was exemplified in the courtroom, and in 1961, he left government service and returned to private practice where he utilized his criminal skills to become one of the foremost criminal defense attorneys in Memphis, earning acquittals for several prominent public officials.
He was married to the late Barbara Rees Hodges, and is survived by their three sons; namely, Rusty Hodges, Lincoln Hodges, and Geoffrey Hodges. Rusty and Lincoln followed him into the practice of law, as did Lincoln’s son, Rees Hodges. He is also survived by five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
On April 12, 2021, President Biden nominated Kenneth Polite to serve as the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division. Polite served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana from 2013 to 2017. He joined Morgan Lewis’ global disputes and investigations team as a partner in Philadelphia in July 2018.
NAFUSA members Barb McQuade (ED Michigan 2010-2017) and Joyce Vance (ND Alabama 2009-2017) have teamed with Boston Global Opinion columnist Kimberly Atkins and Jill Wine-Banks, the only woman on the Watergate prosecution team, to launch the podcast 
NAFUSA member Ted Olson, solicitor general of the United States 2001-2004, and assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, 1981-1984) has teamed up with his partner at Gibson Dunn, Ted Boutrous, in a new podcast (“The Two Teds”). Boutros is the global co-chair of Gibson Dunn’s litigation department.
As is our custom, NAFUSA arranged for an American flag to be flown over the United States Department of Justice and it was presented to Jim’s wife Susan at the memorial service on March 10, as a token of the regard with which he was held by his colleagues. NAFUSA President Paul Coggins and Executive Director Emeritus Ron Woods are shown in the photo below presenting the flag to Susan. The photo to the right shows Jim’s flag being flown over Main Justice last week.
On February 8, 2021, a bipartisan letter from over 100 former Unites States Attorneys who served over the past six decades was delivered to Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley in support of President Biden’s nomination of Lisa A. Monaco for Deputy Attorney General.
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