Leon Lipson papers

Collection

Call Number: MS 2019

Scope and Contents

The papers consist of research notes, primarily on Soviet law but also including contract, business and international law, and two articles written by Lipson. One unpublished manuscript, “How to Argue in Soviet”, with accompanying material, discusses the style and "spirit" of Soviet discourse. The second is a draft and critiques of an article, “Research in the Law of Contracts”, a survey of work done primarily by American researchers on contract law from the mid-1930s to 1962. There are also notes and correspondence relating to the case of Craig Whitney and Hal Piper, two American reporters working in the Soviet Union in the 1970s who were convicted of libeling Soviet television. Whitney and Piper were subsequently fined and ordered to print a retraction of articles they had written claiming that the televised confession of a Georgian dissident had been fabricated.

Dates

1946-1997

Creator

Lipson, Leon

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by Leon Lipson was transferred to Yale University in 2015. These materials may be used for non-commercial purposes without seeking permission from Yale University as the copyright holder. For other uses of these materials, please contact mssa.assist@yale.edu. Copyright status for other collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Abigail Lipson, 2015.

Arrangement

The materials are arranged by subject.

Extent

2.31 Linear Feet (5 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.2019

Additional Description

Overview

The papers consist of research notes, primarily on Soviet law but also including contract, business and international law, and two articles written by Lipson. There are also notes and correspondence relating to the case of Craig Whitney and Hal Piper, two American reporters working in the Soviet Union in the 1970s who were convicted of libeling Soviet television.

Biographical / Historical

Leon Lipson was born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts in 1921. He attended Harvard University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in political theory in 1941 and a master’s in Soviet languages and literature in 1943. After working at the Foreign Economic Administration, the Department of State and the War Department during World War II, he returned to Harvard Law School, where he was on the Harvard Law Review and received a law degree in 1950. Upon graduation, he worked for the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Friendly and Cox for six years before being recruited for the Yale Law School faculty as an associate professor in 1956. Lipson became a full professor in 1960, William K. Townsend Professor in 1967, and Henry R. Luce Professor in Jurisprudence in 1977, also serving as associate provost of Yale, 1965-1968. After his retirement in 1992, he was appointed Paul C. Tsai Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale. Professor Lipson specialized in the study of Soviet law and space law. Among his professional writings are Report to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the Law of Outer Space” with Nicholas B. Katzenbach, and two publications, Papers on Soviet Law and Law and the Social Sciences, which he edited with Stanton Wheeler. Lipson was married to the former Dorothy Ann Rapoport, with whom he had three children: James Ezra, Abigail, and Michael Aaron. Following the death of his first wife, he married Rita Brackman and gained three stepchildren: Alex, Yvette, and Peter Brackman. Lipson died in New Haven, Connecticut on September 20, 1996.