Hammond Chaffetz

Hammond E. Chaffetz (July 9, 1907 – January 12, 2001) was a federal prosecutor and partner at Kirkland & Ellis. He helped turn the law firm into one of America’s largest law firms.

Early life Born in Massachusetts, Chaffetz graduated from Harvard Law School in 1930.

Career He joined the U.S. Department of Justice, where he became a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, pioneering federal antitrust prosecution policies later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co.

Chaffetz had been recommended for the position by one of his Harvard Law School professors, future U.S. Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter. Frankfurter, however, had also recommended one of Chaffetz's classmates, future accused Soviet spy Alger Hiss, for the same position, and it was Hiss's decision to withdraw that Chaffetz believed opened the position to him. His brother was Maxwell (Max) Chaffetz, an FBI special agent whose grandson is former Congressman Jason Chaffetz, and his second cousin was Washington, D.C. real estate developer and philanthropist Morris Cafritz.