Vern Countryman

His father, Alexander Countryman, was the under sheriff of Musselshell County and his mother, Carrie Harriman, a homemaker.

The family moved to Longview, Washington, where Vern excelled at high school athletics and was class president both his junior and senior years.

[3] 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.

Countryman worked as an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in Seattle before serving as a clerk from 1942 to 1943 for Justice William O. Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) of the U.S. Supreme Court.

[4][5] He then served with the Army Air Force in Italy during World War II, rising to First Lieutenant.

[7] Countryman was a prominent bankruptcy scholar, following in the footsteps of Wesley Sturges (November 3, 1893-November 1962) and his mentor, William O.

[8] His casebook with J. William Moore, Debtors' and Creditors' Rights: Cases and Materials,[9] 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.

[13] Many faculty members, however, believed the decision was based on Countryman's left-wing politics and the tenure denial was therefore a cause célèbre.

[14] 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.

Countryman & Williams on Partnerships, Limited Liability Entities and S Corporations in Bankruptcy (series).

---, "Bankruptcy and the Individual Debtor – And a Modest Proposal to Return to the Seventeenth Century," 32 Cath.