John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellow Lectures
The John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellowship brings to the Law School a leading expert in securities law or the accounting for business enterprises, who delivers a public lecture at the School.
John R. Raben ‘39, was a partner of the Sullivan & Cromwell firm. He was counsel to investment banking and accounting firms and associations, including the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and counsel to the industry task force that helped draft the Securities Investor Protection Corporation Legislation. Upon his death in 1975, the fellowship was established in his honor at the Law School by Sullivan & Cromwell, and augmented by his friends.
In remarks for a firm history by John F. Cannon, then a younger partner, the following impression of John Raben was provided:
“No chronicle of any length could capture how potent a figure John’s character, intellect and spirit made him with his clients and those with whom he dealt on behalf of his clients, and with his partners, associates and other co-workers at Sullivan & Cromwell… For all of John’s intensity and rigor as a lawyer, he never confused anyone for very long about what the man was like; warm and thoughtful, generous and forgiving. And in spite of the strength and confidence he projected, there was a boyish element, a shyness in him, a paradox with roots, one judges, in his awareness that his great gifts were, after all, gifts.”