Donald F. Turner

Who was Donald F. Turner?

Donald F. Turner was a notable antitrust attorney and professor at Harvard Law School. A native of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, Turner graduated from Northwestern University in 1941, and went on to earn a doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1947 and a law degree from Yale Law School in 1950. He clerked for Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark, and joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1954. He headed Antitrust Division at the United States Department of Justice under Lyndon Baines Johnson. He retired from Harvard in 1979 and joined the law firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering. He also served as visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and was a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

He died on July 24, 1994 from Alzheimer's disease.

Upon his death, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote his obituary on his legal career. Breyer wrote that Turner was Breyer's first post-clerkship employer.

He is celebrated for his 1956 article on the so-called Cellophane Case against the duPont company It marked the first time economic analysis was well publicized to analyse antitrust law for the non-economist public.