John Saul Edwards (born October 6, 1943) is an American politician and lawyer. He is a member of the Senate of Virginia, representing the 21st district. Early life and education Edwards graduated from Patrick Henry High School in 1962, where he was president of the Student Government Association, a state champion pole vaulter, and voted by his classmates as "most likely to succeed." In 1992, he was inducted into the school's Sports Hall of Fame. He graduated cum laude with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1966 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Making of the Marshall Plan." While a student at Princeton, Edwards was a pole vaulter on the track team. He then attended the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York on a Rockefeller Brothers Theological Fellowship (1966–67) but withdrew to attend law school. Edwards graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D. 1970), where he was a member of the Law Review and elected to Omicron Delta Kappa and the Raven Society. He served as Vice-Chairman of the University Judiciary Committee and as assistant to Professor Antonin Scalia, later justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Military service Edwards served in the United States Marine Corps from 1971 to 1973 as a Judge Advocate General, attaining the rank of captain. He volunteered for the Far East and served with the First Marine Aircraft Wing in Japan and Okinawa and later with the second Marine Division at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. Legal career In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Edwards United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. During his term, Edwards's office achieved several milestones. The Roanoke Times & World News reported that he had one of the "perhaps most successful tenures of any federal prosecutor in recent years." He prosecuted the largest criminal case in the country at the time under the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, prosecuted the first criminal civil rights case in Virginia, initiated a national investigation into public corruption in the Mine Safety and Health Administration, prosecuted the largest bank robbery in Virginia history, and prosecuted organized crime. His office also received recognition from the Department of Justice for increasing by several times the collection of monies owed the federal government. He is the author of "Professional Responsibilities of the Federal Prosecutor," 17 U. Rich. L. Rev. 511 (1983). Edwards is a partner