Williams & Connolly was celebrating its 50th anniversary year when the “The Post” debuted in theaters in 2017. Steven Spielberg’s vision of Old Washington featured Tom Hanks as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as publisher Katharine Graham, struggling to decide whether to print a cache of the Pentagon Papers.

Absent from the carousel of lawyers tussling with the newspapermen on screen was Edward Bennett Williams, the Post’s longtime lawyer and Williams & Connolly’s legendary co-founder. Before his death, Bradlee said he and Graham relied on Williams’ advice in green-lighting publication over other lawyers’ timidity. But Spielberg saw no scene for “The Man to See,” a moniker bestowed on Williams by biographer Evan Thomas.