Albert Ernest Jenner was an American lawyer from Chicago and one of the name partners of the law firm Jenner & Block. He served as assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and later as senior minority counsel on the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry into Richard Nixon.
Background
Albert Ernest Jenner Jr. was born on June 20, 1907, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a Chicago police officer. He grew up in Canaryville, the old Chicago stockyards neighborhood, in a city that was then one of the country's major industrial and meatpacking centers.
Jenner later traced his interest in law to a rainy day when he was ten years old, when he found a tattered text on the common law in his attic and concluded that he would become a lawyer.
To help pay for college he worked as a professional boxer. At the University of Illinois he held a circulation position on the Daily Illini, the student newspaper, where he met his future wife, Nadine Newbill.
Education
Jenner received his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois in 1929. The university was established as a land-grant institution under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 and opened in 1868. Its early planners wanted it grounded in the liberal arts, although many state residents and lawmakers had wanted it to focus on industrial education.
He then studied at the University of Illinois College of Law, which was established in 1897 and became a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools. Illinois was also home to the founding chapter of the Order of the Coif, a law honor society, and Jenner earned membership in that society while in law school. He received his law degree in 1930.
Career
After law school Jenner served as reporter for the Illinois Civil Practice Act. In 1933 he joined the Chicago firm of Poppenheusen, Johnston, Thompson and Cole, the precursor of Jenner & Block, and he was admitted to partnership in January 1939. The firm had been founded in Chicago in 1914 as Newman, Poppenhusen & Stern. In late 1928 former Illinois Supreme Court chief justice Floyd Thompson joined it, and he handled several high-profile cases there. Jenner developed relationships with several prominent clients, most notably General Dynamics, and by the 1940s he had become the firm's top earner.
In 1955 Jenner became a name partner. The firm was renamed Raymond Mayer Jenner & Block in 1964 after Samuel W. Block became a name partner, and it was shortened to its present title in 1969. From 1956 to 1957 he served as special assistant attorney general of Illinois, investigating fraud in the office of the state's auditor of public accounts.
Jenner was a former professor of law at the Northwestern University School of Law, part of a private university founded in 1851 in Evanston, Illinois. From 1960 to 1970 he served on the Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and from 1964 to 1975 he chaired the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence for the United States courts. These advisory bodies assisted the Supreme Court in developing procedural and evidentiary rules for the federal courts.
In December 1963 Chief Justice Earl Warren suggested Jenner, then the attorney for Henry Crown, for appointment to the Warren Commission. President Lyndon B. Johnson had created the commission, chaired by Warren, on November 29, 1963, a week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The appointment drew controversy because Jenner's firm employed Crown's son, John Crown, as a law associate and later as a partner. As assistant counsel, Jenner was assigned the 'Area III' investigation into Lee Harvey Oswald's background. The commission's report, released in September 1964, concluded that Oswald acted alone.
Jenner also served as a member of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, which investigated the causes of violence surrounding the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
In 1974 Jenner served as senior minority counsel on the impeachment inquiry staff for the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee during the process against President Richard Nixon. He was replaced in July 1974 after advocating Nixon's impeachment, and Nixon resigned in August 1974.
After Jenner died in Deerfield, Illinois, on September 18, 1988, a memorial service at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago included remarks by Illinois Governor James Thompson.
Achievements
Chaired the Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence from 1964 to 1975, a body that advised on the rules of evidence for the United States courts.
Became, at age twenty-seven, the youngest attorney to serve on the Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association.
Established the relationship between Jenner & Block and General Dynamics in the 1950s, which the firm later described as longstanding.
Membership
Jenner's memberships combined academic, bar, and civil rights organizations. The Order of the Coif is a law honor society that recognizes academic achievement in legal education, and its founding chapter was established at the University of Illinois. The Chicago Bar Association is a bar association of the city's lawyers.
His civil rights and legal reform affiliations included the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the legal arm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which organized private attorneys for civil rights work. The World Peace Through Law Center promotes the rule of law in international affairs.
Elected while a student at the University of Illinois College of Law.
Order of the Coif
,
United States
Member of the Board of Managers.
Chicago Bar Association
,
United States
Founding member.
World Peace Through Law Center
,
United States
Member of the Board of Governors.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
,
United States
Member and national co-chairman.
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
,
United States
Connections
Jenner later married Nadine Newbill, a reporter for the student newspaper, whom he had met while working on the Daily Illini.
His professional connections included Henry Crown, whose attorney he was, and John Crown, Henry Crown's son, who worked at Jenner's firm as a law associate and later as a partner. Jenner established the firm's longstanding relationship with General Dynamics in the 1950s.
Wife:
Nadine Newbill
Met Jenner while both worked on the Daily Illini, where she was a reporter for the student newspaper.
References
Albert E. Jenner Jr.
Encyclopedia article covering Jenner's Chicago birth, his education at the University of Illinois, his career with Jenner & Block, and his government service on the Warren Commission, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, and the House Judiciary Committee.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr. biographical profile
Biographical profile describing Jenner's upbringing in Canaryville, his legal career, his advisory committee service, his role on the Warren Commission, and his professional memberships.
