Richard Wormington Jennings

Background

Richard Wormington Jennings was born on October 19, 1907, in Bois D´Arc, Missouri, United States. He was the son of William Thomas and Hattie (Wormington) Jennings.

Education

In 1927, Jennings received Bachelor of Arts degree from Park College in Parkville, Missouri, and in 1975, Doctor of Laws. Jennings received a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania before enrolling at Boalt Hall, the University of California at Berkeley’s law school. He received his law degree in 1939.

Career

Jennings began his career in 1927 as a teacher in high school in Pinckneyville, Illinois, and worked there till 1930. From 1930 to 1933, he was a teacher, in high school in Camden. In 1939, Jennings was hired at the Jesse H. Steinhart law firm that same year, eventually becoming a full member of the firm. While maintaining his practice at Steinhart, Jennings joined the faculty at his California alma mater in 1940 and stayed there for more than fifty years. From 1955 to 1975 he worked as a lecturer at law University of California at Berkeley. Professor Jennings's influence on securities regulation extended well beyond the classroom. In the early 1960s, William L. Cary, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission under President John F. Kennedy, recruited him as a consultant to the commission's first full-scale investigation of the securities markets in 25 years.

Professor Jennings was invited in 1961 to serve as a Fulbright professor at Tokyo University and helped introduce modern securities regulation theory to the Japanese academic community. He was also a mentor, along with Professor Loss, to an influential group of young law professors in Germany in the mid-1950's who helped add securities regulation to the academic agenda there as Germany developed into an economic power. Through his work on the study and his testimony at various Congressional hearings, he contributed to the public debate that led in 1975 to the elimination of fixed brokerage commissions on Wall Street. That change led to the collapse of many securities firms and radically altered the competitive forces in the securities industry. Jennings co-wrote an influential securities casebook in the early 1960s: Securities Regulation - Cases and Materials. The book is now in its eighth printing and is considered an essential read for securities law students.

Jennings wrote Selected Statutes: Rules and Forms Under the Federal Securities Laws in 1974 and even though nearing retirement, continued teaching and encouraging students in their studies of securities law. His influence extended around the world, as Jennings served as a Fulbright professor at Tokyo University and also worked with law professors at the University of Cologne in Germany to get securities regulation added to the curriculum there.

He died at his home in Piedmont, California, on August, 9 after a brief illness. He was 91.

Achievements

• Jennings was best-known as one of the earliest experts in securities law, a field that was only emerging mid century. On campus, he is best known beyond the law school for his service as chairman of the faculty senate at the height of the Free Speech Movement in the mid-1960's, a cultural collision between campus liberals and the conservative establishment in Sacramento that developed against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Supplement to Securities Regulation, Cases & Materials

    (Securities Regulation: Cases and Materials - Containing S...)

    1998
  • Federal Securities Laws: Selected Statutes, Rules and Forms

    (This is a federal securities law statutory supplement con...)

    2002
  • The Tragic Tale of the Dog Who Killed Himself

    ("A young boy recounts the events leading to suburban Amer...)

    1980
  • Securities regulation: Cases and materials 1971

Membership

President International Institute San Francisco, 1949-1951. Member American, California bar associations, American Law Institute, American Bar Foundation, Order Coif, Phi Beta Kappa.

Personality

Professor Jennings, formal and gracious, was one of the last law professors at Berkeley to abandon jacket and tie for ''business casual.'' But other trappings of legal power did not impress him.

Connections

On August 10, 1935, Jennings married Elizabeth Robison. The couple had three children: Susan Elizabeth, Margaret Anne, William Thomas.

Father:

William Thomas Jennings

Mother:

Hattie (Wormington) Jennings

Spouse:

Elizabeth Robison

Daughter:

Susan Elizabeth Jennings

Son:

William Thomas Jennings

Daughter:

Margaret Anne Jennings

References

• Directory of American Scholars Identifies American and Canadian scholars in five volumes, including biographical information of those in the areas of history, literature, religion, and foreign languages.
  2001