While in law school, his girlfriend and future wife, Virginia Shugart, was the roommate of Pat Ryan, the girlfriend and future wife of Richard Nixon, and they first met each other at a party following the 1939 Rose Bowl in which Counts' USC team beat Duke University, where Nixon was attending law school.
He started as a clerk, and entered a management training program, after which he ascended the corporate ladder to become the firm's director of employee relations in 1962.
[2] After becoming involved in the strike on January 7, 1970, Counts met several times daily with each side, helping hammer out an agreement to end the labor stoppage.
[3] He also was involved in settling a strike by the International Longshoremen's Association that effectively closed ports on the East Coast of the United States, helping achieve settlements with locals in Boston and Texas.
[3] Counts died at age 83 on June 30, 1999 at his home in the Cheviot Hills section Los Angeles, California where he had lived for five decades.