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Vernon Countryman (May 13, 1917 – May 2, 1999) was an American legal scholar at Harvard Law School who was an expert on bankruptcy and commercial law.
In 1939, he was graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of Washington and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In 1942, he graduated from the University of Washington Law School,"In Memory," Columns: The University of Washington Alumni Magazine, September 1999 (Entry for "Vern Countryman, '39, '42, Cambridge, Mass., age 81, May 2 1999"). where he was president of the Washington Law Review editorial board (overlapping with Donald R. Colvin).Masthead, 15 Wash. L. Rev. & St. B. J. 99 (1940)(showing Vern Countryman a member of the Law Review).
On November 9, 1940, he married Vera Marie Pound (July 19, 1917 – December 2, 1994), with whom he had two daughters: Debra Green and Kay Briggs. Like Vern, Vera was born in a small town in Montana (Washoe) and had moved to Longview, Washington, with her family.
In 1947-48, Countryman was a graduate student at Yale Law School before joining the faculty. He was an assistant professor of law from 1948 to 1950 and an associate professor from 1950 to 1955. The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (2009). Roger K. Newman, ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Entry by David K. Skeel, Jr., for "Vern Countryman.", p. 131. , .
Countryman was a prominent bankruptcy scholar, following in the footsteps of Wesley Sturges (November 3, 1893-November 1962) and his mentor, William O. Douglas.Frank, John P. (1959). "Review of Douglas of the Supreme Court by Vern Countryman," U. of Chicago L. Rev.: Vol. 27(1): 184-189. His casebook with J. William Moore, Debtors' and Creditors' Rights: Cases and Materials,New York, NY: M. Bender. which was first published in 1947 and went through four editions by 1975, "took a novel approach to the subject, by providing the evolution of both the non-bankruptcy and bankruptcy systems of creditors' remedies, thereby facilitating a comparative evaluation of their merits."Boshkoff, Douglas (1965). Book review: "Cases and Materials on Debtor and Creditor, by Vern Countryman" Indiana L. J., 40(2): 280-283.
Countryman was denied tenure by Yale, despite the Law School faculty's positive recommendation, because of that book, which the university President, A. Whitney Griswold (October 27, 1906 – April 19, 1963), was said to have considered of insufficient academic quality to merit tenure."The Heyday of Legal Realism, 1928-1954," Yale University Web site (2016), Entry for "Vern Countryman Associate Professor of Law, 1948-55." Many faculty members, however, believed the decision was based on Countryman's left-wing politics and the tenure denial was therefore a cause célèbre. History of the Yale Law School: The Tercentennial Lectures, Anthony T. Kronman, ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), pp 150-151, Gaddis Smith, "Politics and the Law School" (description of decision of Yale Law School to not offer tenure to Vern Countryman). , . Yale offered an extension of Countryman's contract to improve his scholarly output for reconsideration, but he resigned instead.
In the early 1950s, Countryman also locked horns with leading commentators in his promotion of free speech. Conservative author William F. Buckley, Jr. (November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008), called Countryman's 1952 critique of God and Man at Yale a close runner up to "the most acidulous review of the lot."Buckley, William F. Jr. (1986). God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. p. xxxv (Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Edition: Vern Countryman's review in the Yale Law Journal a close runner up to "the most acidulous review of the lot.") , ; and Countryman, Vern (1952). Review of "William F. Buckley, God and Man at Yale." The Yale Law Journal, 61.2: 272-83 ("Once upon a time there was a little boy named William Buckley. Although he was a very little boy, he was much too big for his britches.").
From 1955 to 1959 Countryman practiced law as a partner with Shea, Greenman & Gardner in Washington, D.C.,See, e.g., American President Lines v. United States, 265 F.2d 552 (3d Cir. 1959)(Vern Countryman lead counsel for plaintiff.) before becoming Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1959. University of New Mexico, School of Law Bulletin, 1962-63, p 5, "The Faculty and Staff of the Law School," entry for Vern Countryman.
In 1959, he published a collection of opinions by Justice Douglas prefaced by a brief biographical sketch.Gould, William B. Book review: "Douglas of the Supreme Court," 45 Cornell Law Quarterly 161 (1959). The opinions span the spectrum of individual freedom and the application of the Bill of Rights. Douglas of the Supreme Court: A Selection of His Opinions (1959), Vern Countryman, ed. New York, NY: Doubleday. Kirkus Reviews. , .
He was a founding trustee of the National Consumer Law Center, which annually presents the "Vern Countryman Award" to honor lawyers who have contributed to the rights and welfare of low-income consumers. National Consumer Law Center Web site (2016) ("Each year NCLC presents the Vern Countryman Consumer Law Award to a legal services or other public interest attorney whose special contributions to the practice of consumer law have strengthened and affirmed the rights of low-income Americans.")
---, James William Moore (1947). Debtors' and Creditors' Rights (Albany, NY: Matthew Bender & Co.).
--- (1974). The Judicial Record of Justice William O. Douglas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. .
---, Ted Finman and Theodore J. Schneyer (1976). The Lawyer in Modern Society. New York, NY: Little, Brown & Co. , .
---, Andrew Kaufman and Zipporah Wiseman (1982). Commercial Law: Cases and Materials (Law School Casebook (series)). New York, NY: Little Brown & Co. .
---, Jack F. Williams and Frank R. Kennedy (2000). Countryman & Williams on Partnerships, Limited Liability Entities and S Corporations in Bankruptcy (series). Aspen Law & Business. , .
---, The Organized Musicians (Part II), 16 U. Chi. L. Rev. 239 (1949).
---, "For a New Exemption Policy in Bankruptcy" part of the Symposium on Bankruptcy: Current Problems of Administration: Part II, 14 Rutgers L. Rev. 678 (1959–1960).
---, "Clear and Present Danger, a review of The Committee by Walter Goodman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)," New York Review of Books, December 5, 1968.
---, "The Russians are Coming!, a review of The FBI in Our Open Society by Harry Overstreet and Bonaro Overstreet (Norton)," New York Review of Books, July 31, 1969
---, "Why a State Bill of Rights?" 45 Wash. L. Rev. 453 (1970).
---, "The Use of State Law in Bankruptcy Cases (pts. 1 & 2)", 47 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 407, 631 (1972).
---, "Executory Contracts in Bankruptcy: Part I," 57 Minn. L. Rev. 439 (1973).
---, "Bankruptcy and the Individual Debtor – And a Modest Proposal to Return to the Seventeenth Century," 32 Cath. U. L. Rev. 809 (1983).
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