HENRY FRIENDLY WAS a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in New York, and before that a highly regarded corporate lawyer. He ascended (if that is the right word) to the bench in 1959, and died in 1986. There is a puzzle about Friendly, a puzzle that David Dorsen’s clarifying biography poses in an acute form. By all accounts Friendly had a brilliant mind, and no judge in recent memory has had such an all-star cast of hagiographers and celebrants. Friendly’s former law clerks include some of the most prominent legal academics of their generation; and along with judges such as Richard Posner and Michael Boudin—the latter a Friendly clerk as well—they laud Friendly in terms not heard since Confucius’s disciples described their master as the eternal sage and uncrowned king. The puzzle is that it is actually a bit difficult to say what Friendly stood for, or what ideas of general and lasting significance he contributed to law and legal theory.
