George Lloyd Priest, December 17, 2024
Yale Law School Mourns the Loss of Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics George L. Priest
George L. Priest, the Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics at Yale Law School, died on Dec. 17, 2024, at the age of 77.
“Professor Priest was a distinguished scholar, revered teacher, and fierce mentor,” said Dean Heather K. Gerken. “A scholarly pioneer, George left a legion of ideas in his wake. He was also a beloved member of our community, someone who managed to be an intellectual giant with great warmth, humor, and modesty. He made us think, and he made us laugh. And we all mourn his loss.”
Priest joined Yale Law School in 1981 and was named the John M. Olin Professor of Law and Economics in 1986. He was a director of the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Public Policy, which supported the development of the field of law and economics at Yale; the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; and Yale Law School’s Law, Economics, and Organization Workshop. With Steven Shavell of Harvard and A. Mitchell Polinsky of Stanford, he co-founded the American Law and Economics Association, an organization that thrives today. Priest served as the Association’s first president from 1991 to 1992.
His 1984 article (with UCLA economist Benjamin Klein) “The Selection of Disputes for Litigation,” revolutionized theories of the common law and engendered decades of inquiry regarding the probability of litigation outcomes. The article presented what became known as the “Priest-Klein hypothesis” and introduced the concept of selection bias into legal literature.
Among his many other articles are “A Theory of the Consumer Product Warranty” (1981), “Satisfying the Multiple Goals of Tort Law” (1988), and “Rethinking Antitrust Law in an Age of Network Industries” (2007). His book and memoir on the origins of law and economics, “The Rise of Law and Economics: An Intellectual History,” was published in 2020.
Priest was frequently invited to lecture around the world. He taught at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, for two semesters in 1983 and 1986, and at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy in 1984, 1986, and 1988. He gave the inaugural lecture of the Olin Distinguished Lecture Series at the UCLA School of Business in 1986, and the inaugural Monsanto Lecture in Tort Law and Jurisprudence at Valparaiso Law School in 1987. He served on the U.S. President’s Commission on Privatization in 1987-88. He was named the 20th Higgins Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in 2003 and delivered the Distinguished Economist Lecture at the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition in 2004. He served on the American Enterprise Institute’s Council of Academic Advisers from 1994 to 2015.
In 2014, Priest was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and an independent research center. He was named an honorary professor at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, in Lima, Peru, in 2003 and kept close ties with his many Peruvian students over the decades.
In addition to his scholarly work, Priest was known for his generous spirit and legacy of mentorship. He and Kathy, his wife of 57 years, welcomed two generations of Yale Law students to their home for end-of-term events and on countless occasions. He possessed coach-like energy, Dean Heather K. Gerken said at a recent festschrift celebrating Priest’s career as a titan in his field.
“Innumerable lawyers, academics, and leaders around the world can explain their success at least in part with one simple statement: ‘George believed in me,’” Gerken said.
“Law and Markets: A Conference on Themes in the Work of George Priest,” brought scholars from around the world to the Law School for two days of events and discussion in September 2024. Panels included “Law, Risk, and Uncertainty,” “Torts,” “Legal Institutions,” “Antirust,” and “Capitalism.” The papers will be published in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Yale Journal on Regulation.
“Yale Law School, and the legal profession, is forever marked by George’s once-in-a-generation talent,” Gerken said.
Priest received his B.A. from Yale in 1969 and his J.D. in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he worked as a research assistant for the Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase. Prior to coming to Yale, Priest held positions at the University of Chicago, SUNY-Buffalo, and UCLA. He taught courses spanning torts, contracts, antitrust, regulated industries, insurance and public policy, and a renowned seminar titled “Capitalism or Democracy?” with his colleague, former professor (at the University of Chicago), and dear friend Professor Owen M. Fiss.
Priest is survived by Kathy and his children, Simeon E. Baldwin Professor at Yale Law School Claire Priest ’00, Thomas (and Sarah) Priest, Nicholas (and Anne) Priest, and Juliana (and Michael) Ricks, as well as 14 grandchildren.
George and I were fellow Saybrugians, although our acquaintance there was marginal. After rooming with Tom McEwan his sophomore year, he married Kathy Kiefer, a Vassar student, and moved off campus. However, we interacted frequently at The Yale Daily News, where he became business manager, and I became chairman. George would bring his infant son Tom into the business office along with a portable, wind-up swing, set and wind up the contraption, and manage the paper’s business while overseeing Tom. When George had to leave for classes, Tom would be entrusted to the care of our business secretary, Edith Wallace. George was very energetic and, among other enterprises, tried to straighten out the operations of the Yale Co-Op, the News’ biggest advertiser, which he perceived as mismanaged. (His efforts failed). Toward the close of senior year, he assumed the role of chauffeur for Norman Mailer in his unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York City. This job had something to do with an American Studies project that he had committed himself to.
George and I clashed over a perennial policy issue at the News: more money for editorial content versus more for board members’ compensation. But he was so congenial that we became friends. The year after college both George (along with his young family) and I ended up in Chicago. (News’ former vice chairman Doug Woodlock was also in the Windy City then). George was enrolled at the University of Chicago Law School. I had the pleasure of seeing him now and then. A couple of times he even took me water-skiing on Lake Michigan. During that year I had the impression that he was more interested in working on assignments for the swimming pool company run by his father-in-law (a former Olympic gold medalist in swimming) than in studying law.
At the end of that year George dropped out of law school, and he, Kathy, and Tom embarked on an excellent adventure. They investigated homesteading possibilities in Alaska and climbed mountains in the Cascades. After this sojourn, George returned to the University of Chicago, where he plunged into his studies with something akin to religious fervor. He was enraptured by the Chicago school of economics and its legal offshoot, known as “law and economics.” As I understand it, law and economics aims to analyze the effects of legislative enactments and regulatory decisions on the economic welfare of consumers and maintains that private markets generally optimize costs and benefits when governmental intervention is minimal. George worked on numerous studies and articles and joined the faculties of several law schools until he landed at Yale Law School in 1981, as a high priest, so to speak, in the field of law and economics. He continued on the faculty there until his death.
George grew up in Lakewood, Colorado, and despite his residence in New Haven, he and his family slowly gravitated to the upper reaches of the South Platte River in the mountains about 40 miles southwest of Lakewood. They joined a fishing camp used by President Eisenhower, bought a substantial dwelling nearby, and then purchased over a section of mountain property to help keep it from being converted into an RV park. At this sanctuary they held lively annual summer camps, complete with square dances and jazz concerts, attended by an eclectic mix of family members, friends, neighbors, students, academics from around the world, and captains of industry.
George had remarkable physical vigor, loved to climb mountains and reveled in the success of his intramural, Yale basketball team. On December 17, 2024, he died too young from bladder cancer.