After the war he resumed the practice of law in Washington, North Carolina, and, though politically Independent, he supported the Republican Party. He took a leading role at the 1868 state constitutional convention, where he served as chairman of the judiciary committee and unsuccessfully argued that judges should not be elected by the people. Nevertheless, later that same year, Rodman was elected to the Supreme Court.[2][3]
His grandson, William B. Rodman, III, usually called William B. Rodman, Jr., was also a state Supreme Court justice. The portraits of both justices hang in the Supreme Court chambers.