Kenneth Culp Davis

Kenneth Culp Davis (December 19, 1908 August 30, 2003) was an American legal scholar remembered as "the father of administrative law."

Davis was a prominent figure in the development of American administrative law. He played a major role in the drafting of the Administrative Procedure Act, which the U.S. Congress passed in 1946, and in 1958 he published the first edition of his treatise on administrative law, which remains the primary treatise on the subject.

Biography Davis was born on December 19, 1908, in Leeton, Missouri. He received a B.A. from Whitman College in 1931 and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1934.

After law school, Davis practiced law in Cleveland for less than a year before joining the faculty of West Virginia University in 1935. He held a position at the Department of Justice from 19391940 before resuming teaching. His teaching career took him to the University of Texas (19401948), Harvard (19481950), the University of Minnesota (19501960) and the University of Chicago (19611976).

He is also known for his 1969 monograph Discretionary Justice and its 1976 follow-up Police Discretion, in which he argued that more legal restrictions should be placed on administrators in their ability to develop policies.

Administrative Law Treatise Davis' 1958 Administrative Law Treatise, itself an expansion of his 1951 Administrative Law work, was his magnum opus. Earl W. Kintner, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, heralded the work in a contemporary review as "...one of the truly monumental events of this generation of legal writing." Davis updated the Treatise with supplemental volumes throughout the 1960s and 1970s to keep the work up-to-date.

In 1978, Davis formed the K.C. Davis Publishing Company in San Diego to publish the 2nd edition of the Treatise. In 1994, he took on Richard J. Pierce as a co-author for the 3rd edition. Following Davis' death, Pierce took over as the sole author of the Treatise which remains in publication to this day.

Legacy Davis died of natural causes on August 30, 2003, in San Diego, California.

Following his death, Bill Funk, chairman of the ABA Admin Law section said "Davis’ shadow falls over virtually all that administrative lawyers do,[...] To say he was a giant in his field is like saying Mt. Everest is a big mountain." Davis' work continues to be cited in scholarship and court cases.

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