Laylin Knox James, Professor of Law at the University for thirty-four years, attained the age of seventy on July the second and entered upon his retirement in accordance with University statute.

Professor James was graduated from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts with distinction in 1918, and after a term of military service returned to Ann Arbor to earn a Juris Doctor degree. From 1923 until 1926, he served with the New York firm of Cravath, Swaine and Moore. From that date until 1929 when he returned to this University as Professor of Law he taught in the University of Pittsburgh Law School. During the Second World War, he was granted a two years' leave from his teaching to undertake, on behalf of his old law firm, legal offices for the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend.

Distributing his emphasis deftly between the theoretical potentialities of business association and the prevailing conditions of legal practice in the field, Professor James was a vigorous and efficacious teacher of the important fundamental courses in corporation law. His own current conversance with such law he maintained by regular contact with the firm of Cravath, Swaine and Moore and by long service on the Corporation Law Committee of the State Bar, for which he drafted the Michigan Corporation Code and subsequent amendments to it. On behalf of his School, he did yeoman service in placement counseling and played an invaluable role in organizing the law alumni in cities throughout the nation.

The Regents of the University warmly thank Professor James for his able and single-minded fulfillment of his responsibilities here, and invite him to retain his University associations as Professor Emeritus of Law, a title, which they now confer.