Lester M. Bridgeman, 90, a lawyer since 1951, died suddenly after a day at the office on Thursday, March 6, 2014. A native of Paterson, N.J., Mr. Bridgeman grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was a long-time resident of Alexandria. He affiliated with a law firm based in Mobile, Ala. in the mid-1980s, and relocated there permanently about 25 years ago.After a brief period studying forestry at Syracuse University, Mr. Bridgeman joined the Army in 1943, attending (and playing football for) LSU until he volunteered for combat duty and was assigned to the 12th Armored Division. He was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge. Mr. Bridgeman was graduated from Syracuse’s College of Arts and Sciences cum laude in 1948 and from Columbia University’s School of Law. He worked for the Civil Aeronautics Board from 1951-53, leaving to become a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.
When Mr. Bridgeman returned to Washington in 1954, his practice focused on plaintiff’s antitrust law, commercial litigation and regulated industries — particularly transportation, including motor carriers and foreign charter and cargo airlines. In 2001, on behalf of a Russian client, he negotiated with several branches of the federal government and Lockheed Martin to arrange the return to the U.S. of the wreckage of a Navy EP reconnaissance aircraft that the Chinese had forced down on Hainan Island, China. Mr. Bridgeman wrote articles on antitrust law and was the Air Carrier editor, and later Antitrust Law editor, of the Journal of the Association for Transportation Law.He was a gifted raconteur. He loved opera, the bagpipes, conversation, food and wine, history, justice, the outdoors, and languages (he studied French, German, Polish and Spanish, and bought his first television to take Russian lessons). He once cited Dr. Seuss (“Horton Hatches the Egg”) in an appellate brief. While in Virginia, Mr. Bridgeman was active in local Democratic politics. He was for years the most frequently published, and most politically progressive, writer of letters to the editor of the Mobile Press Register. He took full advantage of the Gulf Coast’s opportunities to sail, eat seafood, and tarry in New Orleans. Mr. Bridgeman’s marriages to Clydine Mayhall and Linda High ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 24 years, Ann Booker Bridgeman, daughters from his first marriage, Andrea Bridgeman (Steve Parker) of McLean, Va. and Judith Bridgeman (Jean-Hugues) Rolland of Paris, France, granddaughter Hallie Mayhall Parker of Brooklyn, and many beloved cousins. A memorial service for Mr. Bridgeman was held on March 11 at the Spring Hill Avenue Temple in Mobile. Mr. Bridgeman had wide-ranging interests and enjoyed a lifetime of reading, from Shakespeare to Kipling to Ogden Nash and well beyond. Memorials donations may be made to Writers in Schools via PEN/Faulkner through NetworkForGood.org or to your local library.