W.J. Michael Cody practiced law since 1961 at Burch Porter & Johnson, and as a perennial senior statesman, lent his voice to progressive causes of all kinds, including the case regarding Martin Luther King’s final march here.

Cody died Sunday, Sept. 15, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 88.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Cody was one of the city’s best-known Democrats, a lively, vibrant person with a magnetic personality, and always on the side of good, friends said.

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“Mike was a lion, not just in courage and strength, but in his views and values,” said Bill Craddock, his longtime friend and running partner. “He was very compassionate and never said a bad word about anyone. He never complained. I called him a stoic with a smile.”

Cody served on the Memphis City Council from 1975-1977. He was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee from 1977 to 1981. He served as the state’s Attorney General, a position that required Senate approval, from 1984 to 1988. He also served on a number of boards and organizations over the years, including:

• Member, Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
• Member, Memphis Amateur Sports Hall of Fame
• Member, Rhodes College Athletic Hall of Fame
• Member, Board of Directors of the National Civil Rights Museum
• Vice Chair, Memphis and Shelby County Library Foundation
• Vice Chair, Memphis Travel Aid Society
• Leadership Memphis Board of Directors
• Memphis YMCA Board of Directors
• President of Board of Trustees, Lausanne Collegiate School (2007)
• President, Memphis in May (1996)
• Just City Board of Directors

But Cody’s legacy, according to Craddock, is the work he did for racial reconciliation and the way he helped people on opposite sides come to consensus. That was part of how he moved in the world, his daughter, Jane Cody, said.

“It was just his manner, his charisma, the nonconfrontational way he would express things,” she said, noting that he often told the story of the Black runners when he was in high school who could easily beat the runners who got all the attention in state and regional meets.

“The through line for Mike Cody’s career was honor and ethics. Through his words and his deeds, he taught us to expect — no, demand — that our public servants place character, honesty and ethics above all else,” said Judge Holly Kirby, chief justice of the state Supreme Court. “His fine example is more relevant today than ever.”

Cody was among the handful of attorneys at Burch Porter who represented King in court. King was pushing to hold a second march in Memphis after the first, held in solidarity with the striking sanitation workers, ended in chaos and bloodshed. The legal team convinced the judge to lift the injunction and allow it to happen. As the lawyers were driving from the Lorraine Motel to their law offices Downtown, they heard the emergency vehicles responding to the assassination.

It was April 4, 1968.

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“We all knew him as a voice of reason, a lawyer, politician, and community leader who stood above our artificial divisions of race, community division and championed the cause of humanity,” said Walter Bailey, also on the team in the King case.

“In politics, Mike will be remembered for the role he played in agitating for political reforms as we evolved from a segregated community that paved the way for the progress we now take for granted.”

The two were on the same progressive path, Bailey notes, adding that he succeeded Cody as local president and national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Cody argued four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Tennessee v Garner, the Memphis case that established that police may not use deadly force against a fleeing, unarmed suspect. Bailey represented the civil parties.

Cody was the state Attorney General on the other side.

“He knew how to be an active partisan when that was appropriate. He knew how to be nonpartisan when he was Tennessee’s Attorney General. ”

Lamar Alexander
former Tennessee governor

“While at the court, he remarked to me apologetically that he was on the ‘wrong side,’ ” Bailey said.

“Mike’s progressive impact on the community is indelible.”

Cody’s daughter, Jane, was 4 when King was assassinated. She clearly remembers what came to be called the “MLK evening” in her family’s home.

Her father came in through the swinging kitchen door with such force that her little brother, Michael Cody, who was standing too close, had to get stitches.

“I remember as a child always being afraid that my father might get shot,” she said. “It was probably because of that night because I was too little to really have much other memory of it.”

Cody was example of the best in public service, said former governor, Lamar Alexander.

“He knew how to be an active partisan when that was appropriate. He knew how to be nonpartisan when he was Tennessee’s Attorney General. He was ethical and intelligent. I greatly admire his life in public service and his contributions to the people of our state.”

In the early days after the assassination, Cody and partner Lucius Burch set up Memphis Area Legal Services in space at Centenary United Methodist Church in South Memphis loaned to them by Rev. Jim Lawson, King’s confidante.

“We managed to get 33 young lawyers from various law firms. They would work one or two nights a week or a weekend down there,” Cody told The Daily Memphian in April of this year.

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“The sanitation workers had legal problems they couldn’t afford to get a lawyer for; landlord-tenant problems, wills and evictions were a big part of it,” Cody said.

“We raised enough money, Lucius Burch and I, to have a one-time secretary down there to do intake work, to make sure they qualified and get them help,” Cody said.

By 1970, the effort was funded with federal money from the Office of Economic Opportunity, which was Cody’s goal from the beginning.

Last spring, MALS lost its federal funding through a series of poor management decisions.

“Sometime justice and the law are not aligned,” said Craddock. “Mike found a way to pull them together and to seek justice, but also within the law.

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“I think it was his compassion for what is fair, what is right. He was not just Attorney General but U.S. Attorney, and he could look at both sides.”

Just City, the local nonprofit that has been pushing for criminal justice reform here since it formed in 2015, enjoyed Cody’s “unfailingly generous” counsel as a board member and received it even when he wasn’t on the board, said Katie Raines, chief of staff.

“Mike was a dedicated public servant whose wisdom and kindness were available to every person at Just City, from our leadership team to the frontline staff.

“Though we grieve his loss, we know his legacy of justice, fairness and compassion will continue to inspire us all,” she said.

Cody’s son, Michael, said his father refused specialized license plates he could have had as attorney general, noting he preferred “not to go around the law.

“Sure enough, he got pulled over for speeding. He insisted the officer write him a ticket despite his office. So, you can see he instilled honesty and ethics at every level,” Michael Cody said.

At Burch Porter, Cody’s office for decades was in the corner on the third floor. His numerous awards and citations now line the hallway outside.

“Mike’s death is cause for mourning and celebration. Mourning for obvious reasons. Celebration for an exemplary life so well lived,” said Jef Feibelman, his partner for nearly 50 years.

“As Mr. Burch would say, ‘The hair of the hypocrite was not seen about him.’ His was a life well-lived.”

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen
about Mike Cody

“He was devoted to family, friends, the community, our law firm (and running). His values were impeccable. He was never strident. He was a terrific partner. Always fun to be with. He was just the best.”

Cody grew up in Memphis. He graduated from East High School in 1954 and Rhodes College in 1958. He earned his law degree at the University of Virginia in 1961. In 1998, Rhodes awarded Cody an honorary doctorate.

Jane Cody said her father had many opportunities to leave Memphis and considered only one of them, when he was fresh out of law school.

“He came very close to moving to work for a big law firm in Philadelphia,” she said.

“Mr. Burch told him, ‘You need to come back and help your community.’ My dad really took that to heart.

“He loved being in the place where he grew up, and he loved having a community that he was a part of and wanted to make a better place.”

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She also remembers that nearly anywhere she went with her father, including the Buntyn Cafe, people “from all different walks of life” would come over to pat him on the back, their reverence apparent, even to a child.

“It was quite a childhood having him as my father,” she said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen said he knew Cody all of his adult life and called him “scrupulously honest.”

“As Mr. Burch would say, ‘The hair of the hypocrite was not seen about him,’ ” Cohen said. “His was a life well-lived.”

Cody ran marathons and logged more than 40,000 miles in running shoes, which were lined up in his home, impeccably neat, as Cody was, Feibelman said.

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“The toes on those shoes were perfectly even, the shoelaces inside the shoes,” he said.

Lawyers in the office would tease Cody, he said, by leaving a pencil on his desk out of place and watch to see how quickly it was noticed.

Cody and a few running friends, including Craddock, started the Breakaway Running store in 1982 because there was no local running store.

“Our mission was to not lose money and have fun,” Craddock said. “And we succeeded.”

Cody ran from the time he was in high school, long before running was in vogue.

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“I think he was a competitor,” Craddock said. “And yet, he wasn’t competing against other people. He was more or less seeking the best out of himself. I think he also had an athletic mind; he would really work his mind in thinking through issues. And I think his running was a way he could excel and be better with himself.”

In Midtown, neighbors watched him run by early in the morning, including Judge Julia Gibbons, who serves on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Early in her career, she was assigned to a case in state circuit court and found herself with Leo Bearman Sr. and Cody.

“They were just so welcoming and nice and treated me like a professional, like almost their contemporary, I would say. It was such a pleasure to deal with Mike in that way at such an early point in my career,” Gibbons said.

Through the years, the connections — professional and personal — were many.

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“We always admired him; we just had a great deal of admiration for Mike and the way he conducted himself and the way he lived his life.”

Cody is survived by his wife, Suzanna Cody; daughters Jane Cody of New Mexico and Mia Cody of Memphis; a son, Michael Cody of Germantown; and three grandchildren, Catherine Simpson, Walker Simpson and William Simpson.

Graveside services will be private. The family will host a gathering for friends and associates next spring.