FRANK, JEROME NEW
Jerome New Frank had a distinguished career as a judge but won perhaps even more renown as a legal philosopher and author.
Frank was born September 10, 1889, in New
York City. He received a Ph.B. from the Univer-
sity of Chicago in 1909 and a law degree from
the University of Chicago Law School in 1912.
His next twenty years were spent in private prac-
tice where he specialized in the reorganization of
corporations.
During the 1930s, Frank became involved in
several of the agencies established as part of
President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’s NEW DEAL.
In 1933 FELIX FRANKFURTER, then a law profes-
sor at Harvard, recommended Frank for the
position of general counsel to the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the Fed-
eral Surplus Relief Corporation. In 1935, how-
ever, Frank and several of his staff were fired
because they insisted that benefits provided to
cotton growers under AAA contracts should be
shared with sharecroppers. Almost immediately,
Roosevelt appointed Frank as special counsel to
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. From
there Frank went to the Public Works Adminis-
tration (PWA) where he took an active part in
the litigation that surrounded Roosevelt’s public
power program. In his most notable case for the
PWA, Frank prepared the government’s case in a
suit that involved federal construction of elec-
tricity distribution systems. The Supreme Court
upheld the government’s position in Alabama
Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U.S. 464, 58 S. Ct. 300, 82
L. Ed. 374 (1938).
After a brief return to private practice, Frank
reentered public service in 1937 when Roosevelt
appointed him to the SECURITIES AND
EXCHANGE COMMISSION (SEC) at the request of
the commission’s chairman, WILLIAM O. DOU-
GLAS. After Douglas’s appointment to the
Supreme Court in 1939, Frank succeeded him as
chairman of the SEC. Two years later in 1941,
Frank was appointed to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit, a position that
he held until his death.
Frank’s opinions were praised for their liter-
ary quality as well as for their legal analysis.
Characteristically, they drew from a wide range
of subjects—history, philosophy, art and litera-
ture, sociology, and psychology, to name but a
few—as well as from the more standard legal
sources. In his concurring opinion in United
States v. Roth, 237 F.2d 796 (1956), an OBSCENITY
case, Frank cited scientific, psychological, and
economic evidence to support his conclusions.
Another theme that runs through Frank’s
opinions was his concern for persons who are
weak and lacking in influence. In United States
ex rel. Caminito v. Murphy, 222 F.2d 698, 706
