William L. Cary

Who was William L. Cary?

William Lucius Cary served as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission between 1961 and 1964.

Chairman Cary graduated Yale University in 1931 and later served with the Office of Strategic Services in the former Yugoslavia and Romania during World War II. He was a Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia University when President John F. Kennedy appointed as SEC Chairman.

In 1974 he wrote Federalism and Corporate Law: Reflections Upon Delaware, an article in the Yale Law Journal that has been cited frequently for decades as the classic argument for federalizing the issuance of corporate charters.