David P. Currie (1936–2007) was the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Professor of Law at the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dis ...

, noted for his histories of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

and the Supreme Court, his casebooks on federal courts and

conflict of laws Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a case, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction. This body of law deals with three broad t ...

, and his award-winning teaching at the law schoo

He was the son of legal scholar

Brainerd Currie Brainerd Currie (20 December 1912 – 7 September 1965) was a law professor noted for his work in conflict of laws and his creation of the concept of the governmental interests analysis. He was the father of law professor David P. Currie. Curr ...

. His wife was

Barbara Flynn Currie Barbara Flynn Currie (born May 3, 1940) is an American politician who served as a Democratic member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1979 to 2019. She served as the Majority Leader from 1997 to 2019. Flynn Currie's forty years as a ...

, Majority Leader of the Illinois House of Representatives. Born on May 29, 1936, in Macon, Georgia, Currie earned a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in 1957, and a

LL.B. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

from Harvard Law School in 1960, where he served on the '' Harvard Law Review''. After clerking for Judge

Henry Friendly Henry Jacob Friendly (July 3, 1903 – March 11, 1986) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as a circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1959 until his death in 1986. Friendly was one of the most p ...

and then Justice

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

, he joined the

faculty in 1962. His books include ''The Constitution of the United States: A Primer for the People'' (1988, 2nd ed. 2000); ''The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888'' (1985); ''The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century, 1888-1986'' (1990); the four-volume ''The Constitution in Congress''; and ''The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany'' (1994). He was also the author of the 1970 Illinois Environmental Protection Act and the first chair of the Illinois Pollution Control Board. The four volumes of ''The Constitution in Congress'' are ''The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789-1801'' (1997); ''The Constitution in Congress: The Jeffersonians, 1801-1829'' (2001); ''The Constitution in Congress: Democrats and Whigs, 1829-1861'' (2005); and ''The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom, 1829-1861'' (2005).

External links

Obituary
1936 births 2007 deaths American legal scholars American legal writers 20th-century American lawyers University of Chicago alumni Harvard Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States University of Chicago faculty University of Chicago Law School faculty People from Macon, Georgia Conflict of laws scholars {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub

See also

External links