[citation needed] Payton was tapped to be the lead counsel for the University of Michigan in defending its law and undergraduate schools' use of race in their admissions processes.
For three years, Payton served as an admissions officer at the Claremont Colleges, a position that he helped create to recruit black students.
[5] He left the admissions position after receiving a Watson fellowship, which allowed him to study literature in West Africa for a year and, while abroad, he applied to law school.
He successfully defended the NAACP against an anti-trust lawsuit brought by white merchants in Mississippi who had lost business in the wake of a 1966 desegregation boycott.
Early in his term, Payton dealt with the aftermath of the Mount Pleasant riots and worked to improve Latino and police relations in the city.
The couple remained in South Africa for several months before going back to D.C.[5] Returning to Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, Payton took on a civil practice that included representing corporations in employment matters, the American Legacy Foundation in its efforts to prevent youths from smoking, and Fannie Mae in a major class action challenge.
[7] While still at the firm, Payton was tapped to be the lead counsel for the University of Michigan in defending its law and undergraduate schools' use of race in their admissions processes.
[7] In 2008, Payton was appointed the sixth director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. following in the footsteps of such civil rights giants as Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg.