Henry J. Friendly

Henry J. Friendly
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Name	Henry J. Friendly
Birth date	1903-05-26
Birth place	Troy, New York
Death date	1986-03-11
Death place	Boston
Occupation	Judge, Lawyer
Known for	United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

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Henry J. Friendly was a prominent American jurist who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and is widely regarded for influential opinions and administrative leadership. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he combined private practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore with service in the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Department of Justice before his judicial appointment. His judicial philosophy and writings have been cited by scholars and judges across the United States Supreme Court, United States Courts of Appeals, and state courts.

Early life and education

Born in Troy, New York, Friendly attended local schools before matriculating at Harvard College where he studied under professors such as Samuel Eliot Morison and took part in Harvard Crimson activities. After earning an A.B. degree, he continued at Harvard Law School, where he studied with figures connected to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s jurisprudential legacy and interacted with contemporaries who later joined firms like Sullivan & Cromwell, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and Milbank LLP. At Harvard Law School he engaged with topics related to New Deal legal transformations, administrative issues under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and transactional practice associated with J.P. Morgan and National City Bank. His formative legal education connected him to networks including American Bar Association, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and scholars influenced by Roscoe Pound and Felix Frankfurter.

After law school, Friendly joined Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City, working on corporate litigation and securities matters for clients such as AT&T, General Electric, Standard Oil, and U.S. Steel. During the Great Depression and New Deal era, he advised on matters touching the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve System, collaborating with officials from the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department. In the 1940s he served in roles that brought him into contact with figures like Robert H. Jackson, Francis Biddle, and Tom Clark. Friendly's practice intersected with litigation in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and appearances before the United States Supreme Court on matters implicating statutes such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and statutes administered by the Internal Revenue Service.

Nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he joined a bench populated by jurists including Simeon E. Baldwin-era predecessors and colleagues like John Marshall Harlan II and Thurgood Marshall in the broader federal judiciary context. On the Second Circuit he sat with judges such as Learned Hand's successors and contemporaries connected to chambers that produced influential panels alongside judges drawn from circuits including the Third Circuit, Fourth Circuit, and D.C. Circuit. During his tenure, Friendly handled appeals arising from courts like the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and matters that reached the United States Supreme Court. He also contributed to administrative aspects of the Federal Judicial Center and engaged with reforms discussed at meetings of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Friendly authored opinions on a wide array of subjects, including administrative law, securities regulation, antitrust, taxation, civil procedure, and constitutional questions. His reasoning has been cited in decisions of the United States Supreme Court and in scholarly discourse at institutions like Yale Law School, Columbia Law School, and Stanford Law School. Among topics he addressed were standards for review of Administrative Procedure Act adjudications, standards for injunctions implicated by precedents such as Brown v. Board of Education contexts, and doctrines related to antitrust enforcement under statutes like the Sherman Act and Clayton Act. His opinions often engaged with doctrine articulated by jurists including Benjamin N. Cardozo, Cardozo's heirs on the bench, and later commentators such as Henry Hart and Herbert Wechsler. Friendly's jurisprudence influenced cases involving agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Interstate Commerce Commission, and his analyses were discussed in symposia at Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Columbia Law Review.

Friendly's personal life included affiliations with cultural and educational institutions such as Radcliffe College, Harvard University, Columbia University, and civic bodies including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honors and recognition from organizations like the American Bar Association, the Order of the Coif, and various bar associations in New York City and Boston. His papers and correspondence have been studied by scholars at repositories associated with Harvard Law School Library and university archives, informing biographies and analyses published in journals like the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and monographs from university presses including Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Friendly's legacy endures in citations by jurists on the United States Supreme Court, state high courts such as the New York Court of Appeals, and by scholars in fields linked to figures like Richard Posner, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, and Stephen Breyer.

Category:United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit judges Category:Harvard Law School alumni