Louis Loss was a legal scholar considered by many to be the intellectual father of modern securities law. He is best known for his treatise Securities Regulation, which is still considered to be the definitive authority on the subject and which has been cited over 50 times by the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

. The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with having coined the word tippee, to refer to someone who trades stock after getting a tip from a corporate insider.

Education and career at SEC

Loss graduated from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 (B.S.) in 1934 and Yale Law School

Yale Law School

Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...

 (LL.B.) in 1937. He was also granted an honorary A.M. from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1953. Upon his graduation from Yale, Loss joined the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he served as staff attorney from 1937 to 1944, chief counsel of the Division of Trading and Exchanges from 1944 to 1948, and associate general counsel from 1948 to 1952. While at the SEC, he helped develop the initial theories that enabled the Securities and Exchange Commission to use the broadly worded anti-fraud provisions of the securities law to prosecute insider trading

Insider trading

Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company...

, an area not directly addressed by the law itself.

Career as a law professor

Loss held part-time teaching positions at Yale Law School and George Washington University Law School before joining the faculty of Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

 in 1952. He served as Professor of Law from 1952 to 1962 and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law from 1962 to 1984. During his tenure at Harvard, he was offered the chairmanship of the SEC by President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, but he declined. He became William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law Emeritus in 1984. Among his many students at Harvard were U.S. Supreme Court Justices Kennedy

Anthony Kennedy

Anthony McLeod Kennedy is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, having been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor, Kennedy has often been the swing vote on many of the Court's politically charged 5–4 decisions...

, Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...

, Scalia

Antonin Scalia

Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...

, and Souter

David Souter

David Hackett Souter is a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served from 1990 until his retirement on June 29, 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat vacated by William J...

. Till the end of his teaching days, he remained one of the most popular and admired professors among Harvard Law School students as well as among faculty. He also served as director of the Harvard Law School Program of Instruction for Lawyers from 1977 to 1984. After his death, Volume 111 #8 of the Harvard Law Review

Harvard Law Review

The Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the Review is the most cited law review and has the second-highest impact factor in the category "law" after the...

was dedicated to him. Loss' wife, Bernice, served as Curator of the Harvard Law School legal portrait collection.