Lawrence A. Sullivan, at 84; authority on antitrust law
LOS ANGELES - Lawrence A. Sullivan, a leading authority on antitrust law, died Oct. 7 of cancer at his home in Sherman Oaks, family members said. He was 84.
Mr. Sullivan, the first Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall, was the author of several books and articles on antitrust law. He also taught at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.
Along with Southwestern colleague Warren Grimes, he recently published a revised edition of "The Law of Antitrust: An Integrated Handbook," a one-volume work that has become a standard reference for students, judges, and attorneys.
"As a scholar, Larry was careful, scrupulously fair, but never hesitant to advocate for results he believed in," Grimes said in a statement. "He taught many a younger colleague how to blend and balance a thorough and careful analysis with articulate and persuasively stated conclusions."
Collaborating with Eleanor Fox, the Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation at New York University School of Law, Mr. Sullivan produced "Cases and Materials on Antitrust," a casebook also used in antitrust courses around the country.
Mr. Sullivan "thought about the law's impact on people and worried about misuses of power and wealth," Fox said. "Even as antitrust law became so technical and lost sight of its origins, he never did."
Mr. Sullivan grew up in New York, where his father, Charles, was Queens County district attorney. Mr. Sullivan served in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, running a control tower in India. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree from UCLA and his law degree from Harvard, where he was a member of the Law Review.
After working as a clerk for Chief Judge Calvert Magruder of the First US Circuit Court of Appeals, Mr. Sullivan taught at Boalt Hall for two years before joining the Boston law firm of Foley, Hoag, and Eliot. He became a partner and practiced law there for 15 years.
Mr. Sullivan returned to the Boalt faculty in 1967, serving for a time as acting dean. He became professor emeritus in 1991 and joined the faculty at Southwestern, where he taught antitrust law, intellectual property, and regulation and deregulation in the telecommunications industry.
Mr. Sullivan leaves his wife, Joan; three sons from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, Larry B., Mark, and Neil; stepsons Eric, Douglas, and Jonathan; stepdaughter Emily Sears Vaughn; 10 grandchildren; and one great-grandson. 