Cummings, Walter J., 1917-1999.

Walter J. Cummings (1917-1999), judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1940. He joined the United States Justice Department immediately thereafter becoming a U.S. solicitor general. Cummings joined the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals in 1967, serving as chief judge from 1981 to 1986. He wrote opinions forcing the nation's steel companies to stop polluting Lake Michigan and joined a 1972 panel that found evidence of racial discrimination in the city of Chicago's ward map.