Henry Friendly

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Role Judge Name Henry Friendly		Spouse(s) Sophie S. Stern Preceded by Harold Medina

Born July 3, 1903 Elmira, New York ( 1903-07-03 ) Children David S Friendly, Joan Goodman, Ellen Simon Alma mater Harvard College, Harvard Law School Died March 11, 1986, New York City, New York, United States Education Harvard Law School, Harvard College
Nominated by Dwight D. Eisenhower Succeeded by Ellsworth Van Graafeiland

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Henry Jacob Friendly (July 3, 1903 – March 11, 1986) was a prominent judge in the United States, who sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1959 through 1974 (including service as chief judge from 1971 to 1973) and in senior status until his death in 1986.

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Before the bench

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Friendly graduated from Harvard College in 1923 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1927. It is widely rumored that Friendly graduated with the highest grade point average ever attained (before or since) at Harvard Law School, but confirmation of this claim is difficult to find, and the claim is sometimes also made for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter. On June 23, 1927, the Harvard Crimson reported that Friendly was the first Harvard Law graduate to receive a degree summa cum laude. Frankfurter, as a professor at Harvard Law School, sent his student Friendly to work as a clerk for Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court. Friendly then entered private practice in New York City from 1928 to 1959, and was a founding partner of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where his law partners included George W. Ball and Melvin Steen. He served as vice president and general counsel of Pan American World Airways in New York City from 1946 to 1959.

Judicial service

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Friendly was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to a seat on the Second Circuit vacated by Harold Raymond Medina. Friendly's appointment had been endorsed on the basis of merit by several prominent judges and lawyers, including Judge Learned Hand.

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Friendly was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 9, 1959, and received his commission the next day. He served as the chief judge of the Second Circuit from 1971 to 1973.

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Friendly's opinions for the Second Circuit were considered scholarly and of superior quality; many are still cited today, particularly in the field of securities law.

Friendly received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

Death

Friendly took his own life at age 82 on March 11, 1986 in his Park Avenue apartment in New York City. Police said they found three notes in the apartment, one addressed to his resident maid and two unaddressed notes. In all three notes, the judge talked about his distress at his wife's death, his declining health and his failing eyesight, according to a police spokesman. His wife, the former Sophie S. Stern, had died a year and four days earlier. They had been married for 55 years.

Legacy

In a ceremony following Friendly's death, then-Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger said, "In my 30 years on the bench, I have never known a judge more qualified to sit on the Supreme Court." At the same ceremony, Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall called Friendly "a man of the law."

In a letter to the editor of The New York Times following Friendly's obituary, 2nd Circuit Judge Jon O. Newman called Friendly "quite simply the pre-eminent appellate judge of his era" who "authored the definitive opinions for the nation in each area of the law that he had occasion to consider."

In a statement after Friendly's death, Judge Wilfred Feinberg, the 2nd Circuit's chief judge at the time, called Friendly "one of the greatest Federal judges in the history of the Federal bench."

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner described Friendly as "the most distinguished judge in this country during his years on the bench."

Harvard Law School has a professorship named after Friendly. Paul C. Weiler, a Canadian constitutional law scholar, held it from 1993 to 2006; William J. Stuntz, a scholar of criminal law and procedure, held it from 2006 until his death in March 2011. The professorship is currently held by Carol S. Steiker, a specialist in criminal justice policy and capital punishment.

The Federal Bar Council awarded Friendly a Certificate of Distinguished Judicial Service posthumously in 1986.

The American Law Institute has an award named in memory of Friendly and endowed by his former law clerks.

Notable former law clerks

David P. Currie (1960–1961), Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago Law School

Peter B. Edelman (1961–1962), professor of law and co-director, joint degree in law and public policy, Georgetown Law Center

Stephen R. Barnett (1962–1963), Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Professor of Law, emeritus, Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley

Pierre N. Leval (1963–1964), judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Michael Boudin (1964–1965), chief judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Bruce A. Ackerman (1967–1968), Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School

Arthur Raymond Randolph (1969–1970), judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

Walter Hellerstein (1970–1971), Francis Shackleford Distinguished Professor of Taxation Law, University of Georgia School of Law

Martin Glenn (1971–1972), Judge, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York

Lawrence B. Pedowitz (1972–1973), partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Frederick T. Davis (1972–1973), partner, litigation department, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Paris

William Curtis Bryson (1973–1974), judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

James R. Smoot (1974–1975), dean and professor of law, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, The University of Memphis

Philip Bobbitt (1975–1976), Thomas M. Macioce Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Ruth Wedgwood (1976–1977), Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy & Director of the International Law and Organization Program, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University; Member, United Nations Human Rights Committee

Theodore N. Mirvis (1976–1977), partner, litigation department, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Merrick B. Garland (1977–1978), chief judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

Mary I. Coombs (1978–1979), professor of law, University of Miami School of Law

John G. Roberts, Jr. (1979–1980), Chief Justice of the United States

Marc Wolinsky (1980–1981), partner, litigation department, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Gary Born (1981–1982), partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Jonathan R. Macey (1982–1983), Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance and Securities Law, Yale Law School

David J. Seipp (1982–1983), professor of law, Boston University School of Law

Larry D. Kramer (1984–1985), president of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; on leave as Richard E. Lang professor of law and formerly the dean, Stanford Law School

Thomas G. Dagger (1986) of AT&T

Family

Friendly's wife of 55 years, Sophine S. Stern, died a year before his suicide.

Friendly was survived at his death by son David S. Friendly and two daughters, Joan Goodman and Ellen Simon, and 11 grandchildren.

Joan Friendly Goodman is a Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and is married to Prof. Frank Goodman of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, an administrative law and federal courts expert.

References

Henry Friendly Wikipedia

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