Louis Loss was an American lawyer, educator and author. He held the position of a professor of law at Harvard University.
Background
Louis Loss was born on June 14, 1914, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States. The son of emigres from Russia, he decided by the time he was a teenager that he wanted to be a lawyer and spent hours at the county courthouse watching lawyers in action.
Education
Loss was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in 1934 and then received his Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School in 1937. He was also granted an honorary master's degree from Harvard University in 1953.
Loss was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1937 and began work at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that same year. He started out with the SEC as an attorney and rose to the rank of associate general counsel. Loss also taught at various universities, including Catholic University of America, Yale, and George Washington University.
Loss began a lengthy association with Harvard University in 1952, first as a professor of law, then as the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law as of 1962. He became professor emeritus in 1984. While at Harvard, he declined President John F. Kennedy’s offer to return to the SEC as chairman.
Loss also taught at universities in London, England; Tasmania, Australia; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Lagos, Nigeria. In 1985 he served as scholar-in-residence at the University of Georgia.
During Loss’s career, various U.S. courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, cited his work in its decisions more than one thousand times.