Aaron Director

Aaron Director (September 21,1901 – September 11, 2004), a celebrated professor at the University of Chicago Law School, played a central role in the development of the Chicago school of economics. Together with his better known brother-in-law, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, Director influenced a generation of jurists, including Robert Bork, Richard Posner, Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

He founded the "Journal of Law & Economics" in 1958, which he co-edited with Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, that helped to unite the fields of law and economics with far-reaching influence. In 1962, he helped to found the Committee on a Free Society.

Born 1901 in Staryi Chortoryisk, Volynskaya guberniya, Russian Empire, Director immigrated to the United States, and then attended Yale University immediately after World War I. His sister, Rose Friedman, married Milton Friedman in 1938. During World War II, he held positions in the War Department and the Department of Commerce.

In 1946, Director's appointment to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School began a half-century of intellectual productivity, although his reluctance about publishing left few writings behind. Director taught antitrust courses at the law school with Edward Levi, who eventually would serve as Dean of Chicago’s Law School, President of the University of Chicago, and as U.S. Attorney General in the Ford administration.

After retiring from the University of Chicago Law School in 1965, Director relocated to California and took a position at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He died September 11, 2004, at his home in Los Altos Hills, California.

External links

* [http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040913.director.shtml Aaron Director on the University of Chicago website]
* [http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/view.xqy?id=ICU.SPCL.ADIRECTOR Aaron Director Papers at the University of Chicago Library]
* [http://www.wikiberal.org/wiki/Aaron_Director Aaron Director on Wikibéral]