James Andrew Rahl was born in Wooster, Ohio on October 8, 1917. He received his B.S. degree in Speech in 1939 from Northwestern University and his J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1942. In his last year at the Northwestern School of Law, he served as editor in chief of the Illinois Law Review and was also president of the school's Junior Bar Association. After graduation, Rahl moved to Washington, D.C. where he was employed with the Litigation Section of the Enforcement Branch, United States Office of Price Administration. He then served as an officer in the United States Army from 1943-1946. After the close of World War II and before ending his military career, he acted as a liaison officer to the Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate the Pearl Harbor Disaster. Rahl joined the faculty at the Northwestern School of Law in 1946; he remained associated with the school until his demise. He served as dean of the school from 1972 through 1977 and, in 1974, was appointed Northwestern's first Owen L. Coon Professor of Law. Rahl continued teaching at Northwestern as Owen L. Coon Professor of Law Emeritus until shortly before his death in 1994.
Rahl's professional interests centered primarily on the issues of antitrust legislation and enforcement, both domestically and internationally. He also published extensively in the field of tort law. His most significant publications in these fields are Cases on the Law of Torts (1957, 1968 and 1977), which he co-authored with several other scholars and Common Market and American Antitrust: Overlap and Conflict (1970). Rahl's other principal publications include the Conference on the Antitrust Laws and the Attorney General's Committee Report (1955); Cases on Injuries to Relations (1968); Northwestern University School of Law: A Short History (1960); a second edition of the Cases on Injuries to Relations (1968); Advanced Torts: Injures to Business, Political and Family Interests (1977). He also wrote numerous significant published articles and papers and gave testimony before the U.S. Congress on many occasions.
Rahl's influence reached far beyond the classroom. He served as a member of several prominent national and international committees and task forces on antitrust and related policies, including the U.S. Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws (1953-1955); the White House Task Force on Antitrust Policy (1967-1968); the Group of Experts on International Restrictive Trade Practices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (1973); and the United States Department of State Advisory Committee on International Investment, Technology and Development (1979-1987). Rahl was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Commission of the European Communities in Brussels. In 1952, Rahl joined, as counsel, the Chicago law firm of Chadwell & Kayser; he maintained this affiliation for nearly forty years. While on leave from Northwestern in the 1963-1964 academic year, Rahl opened a branch office for the firm in Brussels, Belgium and was its first resident partner. During other sabbaticals from Northwestern he participated in an antitrust trial in 1952-1953; in 1968 he conducted antitrust law research in Europe under a Ford Foundation grant; and in 1970 he held the position of visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He served on the faculty of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies during the summers of 1967 and 1972. As an academic leader, Mr. Rahl was the dominant force in developing plans in the 1960s and 1970s that would move Northwestern into the top echelon of Northwestern Law Schools.
Rahl died at his home in Evanston, Illinois on December 29, 1994. His wife Jean; his son, J[ames] Andrew; his daughter-in-law, Leslie; and three grandchildren survived him.
From the guide to the James A. Rahl (1917-1994) Papers, 1938-1995, 1960-1989, (Northwestern University Archives)
