Perhaps Grimes' most significant accomplishment as Secretary of State was his successful defense of Liberia at the League of Nations when it was threatened with loss of its sovereignty as a result of charges that the country was participating in state sanctioned slave trading.[2] In 1933 he was appointed Chief Justice a position he served in until his death in 1948.[3] The Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law at the University of Liberia is named for him. He was a 1905 graduate of Liberia College.
Justice Grimes' legacy was continued by his children, including Henry W. Grimes who was a pioneer in telecommunications in Liberia, Joseph Rudolph Grimes, the longest serving Secretary of State in Liberia and a primary author of the charter for the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and Dr. Mary Antoinette Brown-Sherman, the first woman on the African continent to be the president of a major university.
