Leon Green (March 31, 1888 – June 15, 1979) was an American

legal realist Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. It is the view that jurisprudence should emulate the methods of natural science, i.e., rely on empirical evidence. Hypotheses must be tested against observations of the world. Legal realists b ...

and long-tenured dean of

Northwestern University School of Law Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, or "T14" law scho ...

(1929–1947). He also served as professor at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

(1926–1929) and the

University of Texas School of Law The University of Texas School of Law (Texas Law) is the law school of the University of Texas at Austin. Texas Law is consistently ranked as one of the top law schools in the United States and is highly selective—registering the 8th lowest ac ...

(1915–1918, 1920–1926, and 1947–1977). Born in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, Green earned an

A.B. 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 Ouachita College in 1908 and

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 the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1915. At Northwestern, Green presided over changes in curriculum to provide students effective training in the changing field of law. He also determined that the best way to raise the law school's stature was to raise the quality of students. Thus, he fought University pressure to raise revenues by admitting unqualified students, and he led a campaign to provide decent housing as a means to attract top students. A leading expert in the field of

Tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

law, Green authored the groundbreaking treatise, ''The Rationale of Proximate Cause'' (1927). Three of Green's students received appointments to the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...

and

Arthur Goldberg Arthur Joseph Goldberg (August 8, 1908January 19, 1990) was an American statesman and jurist who served as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the 6th United States Ambassador to ...

from Northwestern University, and

Thomas Campbell Clark Thomas Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899June 13, 1977) was an American lawyer who served as the 59th United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967. Clark ...

from the University of Texas. Green also served as dean of the

University of North Carolina School of Law The University of North Carolina School of Law is the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Established in 1845, Carolina Law is among the oldest law schools in the United States and is the oldest law school in North Carol ...

(1926–1927). Leon Green said of the relevance of court decisions in time: "The decision of a court is no more 'the law,' than the light from yesterday's lamp is electricity."Paraphrased by Prof. Alan S. Rau in his Contracts class, 28 October 2008 Dean Green died in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, on June 15, 1979.

Books written by Leon Green

*The Rationale of Proximate Cause (1927) *Judge and Jury (1930) *The Judicial Process in Tort Cases (1931; 2d ed. 1939) *Injuries to Relations (1940) *The Litigation Process in Tort Law (1966)

References

*https://ssrn.com/abstract=339562 *http://files.library.northwestern.edu/findingaids/green_leon.pdf#search=%22leon%20green%22 *http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/2000-2001/memorials/AMR/Green/green.html *https://archive.today/20070614165923/http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Lawyer&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=50122 *http://users.ox.ac.uk/~alls0079/Stanford%20Causation2.pdf#search=%22leon%20green%20rationale%20of%20proximate%20cause%22 *http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgr86

External links

Leon Green Papers, 1929-1947, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois
Deans of law schools in the United States 1888 births 1979 deaths American legal scholars Ouachita Baptist University alumni University of Texas School of Law alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law faculty 20th-century American academics {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub