Yale and The SEC
Douglas quit the Cravath firm after four months. After one year, he moved back to Yakima, but soon regretted the move and never actually practiced law there. After a time of unemployment and another months-long stint at Cravath, he went to teach at Columbia Law School. He later joined the faculty of Yale Law School.
At Yale, he became an expert on commercial litigation and bankruptcy, and was identified with the legal realist movement, which pushed for an understanding of law based less on formalistic legal doctrines and more on the real-world effects of the law. While teaching at Yale, he and fellow professor Thurman Arnold were riding the New Haven Railroad and were inspired to set the sign Passengers will please refrain... to Antonin Dvořák's Humoresque #7, which became a common theme on the train and later spread widely into popular culture as an often bawdy song.
In 1934, he left Yale to join the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), having been nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He became an adviser and friend to the President and SEC chairman in 1937.
During this time, Douglas became friends with a group of young New Dealers including Tommy "The Cork" Corcoran and Abe Fortas; this social/political group befriended a freshman Congressman from the 10th District of Texas: Lyndon Baines Johnson. Robert Caro, in his book "Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power", states that, in 1937, Douglas helped persuade President Roosevelt to authorize a controversial dam, the Marshall Ford Dam, that was a key to cementing Johnson's power as a congressman. (461)
Read more about this topic: William O. Douglas
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