Henry G. Manne, former dean of Mason’s School of Law, died Jan. 17, 2015, at the age of 86.
Manne served as dean of Mason’s School of Law from 1986 to 1997 and was a George Mason University Foundation Professor until 1999. The school’s Henry G. Manne Moot Court Competition for Law and Economics and the Henry G. Manne Program in Law and Economics Studies are named for him.
Born on May 10, 1928, in New Orleans, Manne graduated with a BA in economics from Vanderbilt University in 1950 and received a JD from the University of Chicago in 1952 and a doctorate in law from Yale University in 1966. He also held honorary degrees from Seattle University, Universidad Francesco Marroquin in Guatemala and George Mason.
After law school, Manne served in the Air Force JAG Corps. He practiced law briefly in Chicago before beginning his teaching career at St. Louis University in 1956. In subsequent years, he also taught at the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University, the University of Rochester, Stanford University, the University of Miami, Emory University, George Mason University, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.
Manne, along with Nobel laureate Ronald Coase and federal appeals court judges Richard Posner and Guido Calabresi, founded the Law and Economics Movement. For his work, Manne was named a life member of the American Law and Economics Association.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Manne pioneered the application of economic principles to the study of corporations and corporate law. His 1966 book, Insider Trading and the Stock Market, was the first scholarly work to challenge the logic of insider trading laws and remains an influential book on the subject.
While at the University of Rochester in 1971, Manne created the Economics Institute for Law Professors, in which, for the first time, law professors were offered intensive instruction in microeconomics with the aim of incorporating economics into legal analysis and theory. The institute was later moved to the University of Miami where Manne founded the Law and Economics Center in 1974. The creation of the center (which subsequently moved to Emory University and then to Mason, where it continues today) was one of the foundational events in the Law and Economics Movement.
A memorial service will be held at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va., on Friday, Feb. 13, at 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Manne’s honor to the Law and Economics Center at the School of Law, 3301 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201, or online at www.masonlec.org.