Patrick graduated from Harvard in 1978 and spent a year living and working in Africa, on a UN development project in Sudan. He returned to enroll at Harvard Law School, earning his degree in 1982. He then clerked for a year for a liberal US Appeals Court judge in Los Angeles. His first real taste of public life came in 1994, when President Clinton tapped him to head the US Justice Department's civil rights division. At left, Patrick spoke at the White House on Feb. 1, 1994.